You have heard and read a great deal about people using weight loss injections to get slim, you feel it is time to give it a go ahead of the festive season. However, the issue lies in expense.
But it seems there are other options instead of getting a prescription and visiting the pharmacy. A text message arrives giving a link to a website with more affordable drugs – and requiring no necessity to navigate proper procedures. And you saw a similar ad on social media recently, so you decide to take the plunge.
The problem is such promotions are highly likely to be scams. In the best-case scenario, you will be sent no product and lose whatever money you paid. At worst, you receive a counterfeit item, containing unspecified components that could lead to serious medical issues.
The popularity of legitimate weight loss medications has resulted in a rise in counterfeit products entering circulation and scams established to merely steal people’s money.
Medical regulators have advised avoiding purchasing these illegal weight loss medicines absent a doctor's order from beauty salons, bogus online chemists or via social media, stating they could contain “toxins and additional components which may provoke genuine injury”.
New figures from a high street bank reveal a sharp rise in the quantity of customers who have been affected by the scam. The bank says, the amount of money lost to scams related to weight loss injections, injector pens, tablets and fat-dissolving products during the third quarter , was over twice the overall amount lost in the previous three months. The average scam sets back sufferers £120, reports indicate.
“Scammers are actively exploiting people’s insecurities and health concerns, with such frauds skyrocketing in the past few months,” says a financial institution's fraud prevention lead.
How It Appears
Most take place on messaging apps and social media. Across platforms, an account may imitate the brand that you seek, but there will typically be subtle differences in spelling or logos.
These communications or posts will frequently use urgency-laden phrases such as “time-sensitive deal”, “special promotion” or “free giveaway”.
As the price of some legitimate weight loss jabs, rose of late, the scammers will set the cost of their “product” lower.
“Purchasing from unverified sellers on the internet can entail a serious financial, health-related and psychological toll,” warns the security specialist.
What to do
Like any deceptive scheme, the wise saying applies: should something seem too good to be true, it likely isn't genuine.
Medical authorities have cautioned people to be highly vigilant when purchasing medications via the web. They should solely be acquired from a registered pharmacy with a valid script provided by a medical practitioner, it says. When procured from other sources, they can present significant dangers to health.
Fraudsters can go to great lengths to make their site or social media page look as authentic as possible. Should they state to be an online pharmacy based in the UK, it's possible to verify the online portal of the pharmaceutical regulatory body to ensure this is correctly licensed.
