You have heard and read a great deal about people using slimming jabs to lose weight, you feel the moment has come to try them out ahead of the festive season. However, the issue lies in expense.
But it seems alternatives exist instead of getting a prescription and visiting the chemist. An SMS comes through providing a URL to a site with much cheaper drugs – and requiring no need to go through official channels. And you saw a comparable advertisement on social media the other day, prompting you to take the plunge.
The catch is such promotions are almost certainly scams. At best, you'll receive nothing and forfeit whatever money you spent. At worst, you obtain a fake version, with unknown ingredients that could lead to severe health problems.
The popularity of legitimate weight loss medications has resulted in a increase in counterfeit products entering circulation and scams set up to simply take consumers' cash.
Health authorities have warned against buying these illegal weight loss medicines absent a doctor's order from beauty salons, bogus online chemists or through digital platforms, saying they might include “toxins and other ingredients that could cause real harm”.
New figures from a high street bank show a significant surge in the number of customers who have been impacted by the fraud. The bank says, the amount of money stolen through scams related to slimming jabs, pens, pills and lipid-reducing solutions between July and September , was over twice the total sum lost in the previous three months. The average scam sets back sufferers £120, it says.
“Scammers are deliberately targeting people’s insecurities and medical worries, with these scams skyrocketing in the past few months,” notes a bank’s head of fraud.
What it looks like
Most take place on messaging apps and social media. Across platforms, a profile may imitate the brand that you are looking for, but there will typically be slight variations in text 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, has increased recently, the fraudsters will set the cost of their “product” lower.
“Purchasing from unapproved vendors on the internet can come at a significant monetary, health-related and psychological toll,” says the fraud expert.
What to do
As with all scams, the wise saying holds true: should something seem too good to be true, it likely isn't genuine.
Health regulators have warned people to be extremely cautious when purchasing medications online. These products must solely be acquired from a licensed chemist using a prescription issued by a medical practitioner, it says. If sourced elsewhere, they can present serious risks to wellbeing.
Fraudsters can expend considerable effort to make their site or social media page look as authentic as possible. If they claim to be an internet-based chemist located within the UK, it's possible to verify the online portal of the medicines oversight organisation to ensure this is correctly licensed.
