You have heard and read a great deal about people using slimming jabs to lose weight, you feel it is time to try them out ahead of the festive season. However, the issue lies in expense.
Yet it appears alternatives exist instead of getting a prescription and going to the pharmacy. An SMS comes through providing a URL to a website with more affordable medication – and requiring no need to navigate proper procedures. You also noticed a comparable advertisement on online platforms the other day, so you decide to go for it.
The catch is these ads are almost certainly scams. At best, you will be sent no product and forfeit whatever money you paid. In the worst, you receive a fake version, with unknown ingredients that could lead to severe health problems.
The popularity of legitimate slimming drugs has led to a rise in fake goods hitting the market and deceptive practices established to simply take people’s money.
Medical regulators have advised avoiding purchasing these illegal weight loss medicines absent a doctor's order from aesthetic clinics, bogus online chemists or via social media, saying they could contain “harmful substances and additional components that could cause genuine injury”.
New figures from a high street bank reveal a significant surge in the quantity of clients who have been impacted by the scam. The bank says, the total sum lost to fraudulent activities related to weight loss injections, pens, tablets and lipid-reducing solutions between July and September this year, was over twice the total sum stolen in the prior quarter. The average scam costs victims £120, it says.
“Scammers are deliberately targeting people’s insecurities and medical worries, with these scams skyrocketing in the past few months,” notes a financial institution's fraud prevention lead.
What it looks like
The majority occur on messaging apps and social networks. Across platforms, a profile may imitate the brand that you seek, but you'll often notice subtle differences in spelling or brand marks.
The messages or updates will frequently use pressure-inducing language such as “time-sensitive deal”, “exclusive deal” or “free giveaway”.
As the price of some legitimate weight loss jabs, rose of late, the fraudsters will price their “item” lower.
“Buying from unapproved vendors on the internet can come at a significant monetary, medical and emotional cost,” says the fraud expert.
Recommended Actions
As with all scams, the wise saying holds true: should something seem too good to be true, then it probably is.
Health regulators have cautioned people to be highly vigilant when buying medicines online. These products must only be obtained from a registered pharmacy using a prescription provided by a healthcare professional, they advise. When procured from other sources, they may pose serious risks to wellbeing.
Criminals can expend considerable effort to make their site or social media page appear completely genuine. If they claim to be an online pharmacy located within the UK, it's possible to verify the website of the medicines oversight organisation to confirm they are correctly licensed.
