You have heard and read a great deal about people using slimming jabs to lose weight, you feel the moment has come to give it a go ahead of the festive season. However, the issue lies in cost.
Yet it appears there are other options rather than getting a prescription and going to the chemist. A text message arrives giving a link to a site with more affordable medication – and requiring no necessity to navigate official channels. You also noticed a comparable advertisement on social media recently, prompting you to take the plunge.
The problem is these ads are almost certainly fraudulent schemes. In the best-case scenario, you'll receive no product and lose any funds you spent. In the worst, you obtain a counterfeit item, containing unspecified components which may result in severe health problems.
The widespread use of legitimate weight loss medications has resulted in a rise in counterfeit products hitting the market and scams established to simply take people’s money.
Medical regulators have warned against buying such unlawful slimming medications without a prescription from beauty salons, fake pharmacy websites or through social media, saying they could contain “toxins and additional components which may provoke genuine injury”.
New figures from a high street bank show a significant surge in the quantity of customers who have been affected by the scam. 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 , was over twice the overall amount stolen in the previous three months. The average scam sets back sufferers £120, it says.
“Fraudsters are deliberately targeting people’s insecurities and medical worries, with such frauds soaring in recent months,” notes a bank’s head of fraud.
How It Appears
Most take place on communication platforms and social media. Across platforms, an account may imitate the brand that you are looking for, but there will typically be subtle differences in spelling or brand marks.
These communications or posts will often use urgency-laden phrases such as “time-sensitive deal”, “exclusive deal” or “free giveaway”.
As the price of some legitimate slimming injections, rose recently, the scammers will set the cost of their “item” lower.
“Buying from unapproved vendors on the internet can come at a serious monetary, medical and psychological toll,” warns the security specialist.
What to do
As with all scams, the old adage holds true: if it appears overly advantageous, then it probably is.
Health regulators have cautioned people to be extremely cautious when buying medicines online. They should solely be acquired from a registered pharmacy using a prescription provided by a healthcare professional, it says. When procured from other sources, they can present serious risks to wellbeing.
Criminals can go to great lengths to design their webpage or social media page look as authentic as possible. If they claim to be an online pharmacy located within the UK, it's possible to verify the online portal of the pharmaceutical regulatory body to confirm they are correctly licensed.
