You have heard and read a great deal regarding the use of slimming jabs to lose weight, it feels like the moment has come to try them out in the run-up to the festive season. However, the issue lies in expense.
But it seems alternatives exist rather than getting a prescription and going to the pharmacy. An SMS comes through giving a link to a website with much cheaper drugs – and with no necessity to go through proper procedures. You also noticed a comparable advertisement on social media recently, prompting you to take the plunge.
The catch is such promotions are almost certainly fraudulent schemes. At best, you will be sent nothing and lose any funds you spent. In the worst, you obtain a fake version, with unknown ingredients that could lead to severe health problems.
The widespread use of authentic slimming drugs has resulted in a rise in counterfeit products entering circulation and deceptive practices established to merely steal people’s money.
Health authorities have advised avoiding purchasing such unlawful slimming medications without a prescription from aesthetic clinics, bogus online chemists or via social media, saying they could contain “harmful substances and additional components that could cause real harm”.
New figures from a major retail bank show a sharp rise in the quantity of customers who have been impacted by the fraud. The bank says, the amount of money lost to fraudulent activities involving weight loss injections, pens, pills and lipid-reducing solutions between July and September this year, was over twice the total sum lost in the previous three months. Each incident typically costs victims £120, it says.
“Fraudsters are actively exploiting individuals' self-doubts and medical worries, with these scams soaring in recent months,” says a financial institution's fraud prevention lead.
How It Appears
Most take place on communication platforms and social media. Across platforms, a profile may imitate the company that you seek, but there will typically be subtle differences in spelling or logos.
The messages or posts will often use urgency-laden phrases such as “time-sensitive deal”, “special promotion” or “complimentary gift”.
With the cost of some legitimate weight loss jabs, rose recently, the scammers will set the cost of their “item” lower.
“Purchasing from unapproved vendors on the internet can come at a serious financial, medical and emotional cost,” warns the security specialist.
Recommended Actions
As with all scams, the wise saying applies: if it appears too good to be true, it likely isn't genuine.
Health regulators have cautioned people to be highly vigilant when purchasing medications online. They should only be obtained from a registered pharmacy with a valid script provided by a healthcare professional, it says. When procured from other sources, they can present significant dangers to health.
Fraudsters can expend considerable effort to make their site or social media page look as authentic as possible. Should they state to be an online pharmacy located within Great Britain, you can check the online portal of the medicines oversight organisation to confirm this is correctly licensed.
