Scam pills: Recognizing and avoiding them
Scam pills have been around forever, and since the advent of slimming pills, many consumers have fallen victim to unscrupulous traders who have taken advantage of the success of a few innovative products to sell their cheap wares and rip off thousands of people desperate to lose weight.
Unmasking these imposters is one of the reasons why this site was created: to prevent you from being taken in by these fake slimming pills, and to introduce you to the slimming supplements that are safe and really work.
The manufacturers of scam pills have set up a variety of systems, some of them very convincing, to give you the impression that they’re selling you a quality product.
Fortunately, in the time we’ve been watching and investigating them, we’ve learned to recognize their scams, listed them and presented them to our readers so they know when someone is about to sell them a phony pill or repeatedly take advantage of their credit card details.
How to recognize pill scams
Let’s take a look at some of the fraudulent techniques scam pill manufacturers use to convince you that their pills are effective, or simply to get you to give them your bank details, and list together the clues that should arouse your suspicions…
By paying attention to these points, which we’ll explain in detail, we hope you’ll be able to avoid being taken in by these weight loss scam pills and their salespeople.
- Free trial offer/free sample;
- Fake weight-loss pill test sites;
- Fake testimonials/photos of dramatic weight loss ;
- The “seen on TV” scam;
- Incomprehensible scientific jargon ;
- Lack of information about the manufacturer (contact, address, telephone…) …
Free trial
A classic of its kind. Everyone should remember the following:
You come across a site promoting a weight-loss product. The site is very pretty to look at. It looks professional, with images and advertisements that refer to well-known and respected sites.
The manufacturers of the scam pills take you into their confidence with testimonials from satisfied people, both famous and unknown, and then…they offer you to test this product free of charge and with no obligation on your part.
You click on a button and are immediately redirected to a page announcing that all you have to pay is the delivery charge (after all, we’re not going to pay the postage for you!).
Given the usually derisory amount of delivery charges, you think this makes sense and start entering your credit card or bank account details…
Only then do you discover that the seller has charged you the full amount corresponding to the price of the product, and worse still…that you have agreed to this charge being renewed periodically, usually every month.
Then you’ll discover that you forgot to read the general terms and conditions of sale (GTCs) to take advantage of the “free offer” (nobody told you to do so, and what’s more, there are often dozens of paragraphs, written in small type, to dissuade you from reading the whole thing).
A real nightmare!
Your bank can’t do anything (or acts too late), and the seller won’t answer your calls or emails (if you do have his contact details).
Don’t fall for a pill scam!
CONCLUSION: If a seller gave you and thousands of other people a free trial of his products, he’d be out of business in a day. Logical!
NEVER “TAKE ADVANTAGE” of these free offers, avoid them like the plague! Tests and other free samples are there to steal your money and always hide scam pills.
Update April 30, 2019: At last, bankers are starting to react! Here is MasterCard’s official statement regarding Free Trial Offers.
Mastercard’s official statement regarding this rule change:
The rule change will require sellers to obtain the cardholder’s approval at the end of the trial before starting to charge. To help cardholders make this decision, they will be asked – by email or text message – for the transaction amount, payment date, merchant name with explicit instructions on how to’cancel a trial.
Fake Pill Comparison Sites
Doing a Google search for a review of a product you’re interested in, clicking on an ad or a link on a site, you could come across a fraudulent site that looks like a real weight-loss pill comparison site.
There are many serious sites on the Internet that compare weight-loss and other products. They sometimes provide a serious service to consumers wanting to find out more before they buy. These sites give the products they compare ratings to give you an idea of their characteristics.
The problem lies in the fact that for one serious site, there are hundreds of bogus ones, which do nothing but rip off people looking for a solution to their problem. These sites won’t offer you any help or advice, and will concentrate on the only thing they’re interested in: selling you their product and taking money out of your pocket.
These bogus sites are a real problem for any consumer looking for honest advice about a product they want to buy.
What you don’t know is that many of these sites have been set up by the very manufacturers of the scam pills they’re giving you an opinion on.
Do you think they’re going to say anything bad about a product they’re selling and want you to buy?
Of course NOT.
The same people who make a poor-quality, counterfeit or simply ineffective product are behind these fake sites. They always make sure to promote the product they’re selling, presenting it as THE SOLUTION to your weight problems.
These practices are forbidden and immoral, but unfortunately they are commonplace.
To recognize these fraudsters, observe how they favor the product(s) they make and systematically break other products compared (even if the latter are recognized elsewhere as effective).
Nowhere do the owners of these sites mention that they own the product in question or that they receive money from the manufacturer, which is illegal and a blatant lack of transparency.
To prevent you from making the connection between them and the manufacturer, they almost never display their contact details on their sites. This is one more clue to recognizing and avoiding them.
So NEVER BUY diet pills from these fake test and comparison sites, or you’ll fall victim to pill scams.
False testimonials and photo montages
This is one of the most widespread and hardest-to-detect methods of scamming consumers on the Net.
You’re presented with testimonials from satisfied customers about the results they’ve achieved with a particular weight-loss pill.
These testimonials are either stories, photos or videos… all fabricated.
In the case of text testimonials, it’s virtually impossible for you to tell whether they’re real consumer reviews or texts written by the site’s owners.
But don’t worry, it’s a tough one. We often find stylistic similarities that are 100% proof that these testimonials are written by the same person (little sentences that repeat themselves, turns of phrase, names of witnesses that sound alike, etc.).
They even go a step further when it comes to photos of people claiming to have lost weight. Admire the nerve of these people!
On one of these dubious sites, this man is German, called Stefan, and has lost 18 kg. On a variant of the same site, he’s called Esteban and has lost 17.5 kg.
This time, it’s Mrs. “Kate, Katie, Katlijn, Barbara” who has lost between 10 and 16 kg.
Another very popular trick is the “BEFORE/ AFTER” trick.
You are presented with a photo of a rather “curvaceous” person, labelled “Before”, and a supposedly more recent photo of the same person, but this time slimmer, and of course after using the magic pill in question.
The trick is to reverse the chronological order of these photos: in fact, contrary to what the words on the 2 photos say, the lady was thin “before” and gained weight “after”.
Slimming pill scams via false testimonials are a dime a dozen (computer-edited photos, actors paid to testify “spontaneously” in YouTube videos, …etc.), but we’ll track them down and systematically warn you when a new method comes along.
This lady, thanks to computer manipulation (Photoshop), was able to lose weight on the spot!!!!
So be very CAREFUL with false testimonials and opinions on slimming pills!
The “Seen on TV” scam
You’ve probably come across this type of site where you’re presented with images of a famous TV presenter, who appears to reveal the existence of a miraculous slimming pill.
The most exploited celebrities in France are undoubtedly Melissa Theuriau, journalist and presenter for the LCI and M6 TV channels, and wife of the no less famous actor Jamel Debbouze. The celebrity profile depends on the country, so the name and image of Oprah Winfrey, a well-known American presenter, are often used without her knowledge in false advertising aimed at American consumers.
Of course, these two celebrities have nothing to do with the pills sold on these sites, but many consumers will believe them and think that “IF IT’S ON TV, IT MUST BE EFFECTIVE”.
These sites will then offer you the product in question, either as an EXCLUSIVE FREE TRIAL, or with a more than tempting discount.
Of course, by the time you discover the scam, it’ll probably be too late. You’ll have wasted your time and a good part of your money, and surely not a single gram of fat.
There are, of course, serious brands who promote on their websites the fact that such and such a star uses their product, and sometimes they mention the names of these stars or display their photos or videos.
REMEMBER: a TV presenter won’t talk about a product in the news or elsewhere, because it will be free advertising for a given brand, even if their product is good and effective. On the other hand, they’ll be happy to talk about it if it’s a dangerous product that does damage!
So, whenever you see a site with this kind of “breaking news” or mentioning “SEEN ON TV”, be aware that it’s probably one of the many scam pills freely available on the market. That doesn’t stop some products from being effective, safe and seen on TV, and it’s on this confusion that the scammers play!
Incomprehensible scientific blablabla
This is one of the latest tricks of the con artists behind the fake slimming pills.
We’ve come across several sites that try to position themselves as “scientific” sites, where so-called specialists explain the benefits of a slimming product in terms you don’t understand.
These sites are often illustrated with photos of doctors and lab researchers, to give you the impression that those doing the talking are also doctors and lab researchers.
NOT SO!
Many of them are editors hired for the occasion to sweet-talk you through their pseudo-scientific jargon and give the impression that they know what they’re talking about.
We tracked down one of these specialists, and it came as no surprise to find this fake doctor offering his writing services on a job search site. There, he boasts that he can write articles on scientific subjects on demand.
So don’t put too much faith in these sites, which try to bamboozle you with a complicated discourse full of scientific terms you don’t understand.
Lack of manufacturer information
Finally, if a slimming pill website doesn’t clearly display its contact details, this should be a red flag for you. If you can’t easily find an address on the front page or on the contact page, don’t bother!
Why don’t they share their information?
To make it harder for you to get hold of them. It’s so that you don’t bother them when they’re enjoying their vacation (paid for with your money), so that you don’t contact them to ask for a refund and invoke the guarantee they’ve promised you, and finally, to avoid possible legal action.
We’ve also come across a number of scammer sites that display the addresses of serious manufacturers who simply deliver the products you’ve ordered, and aren’t held responsible for the credit card scam you’ve suffered on the scammer site.
In any case, IN THE ABSENCE OF COORDINATES on a site selling slimming pills, and any product in general, we advise you not to dwell on it too much.
Conclusion about diet pill scams
The aim of our site is to uncover scams of this kind and prevent you from suffering the consequences.
This is what we are already trying to do by presenting you with a list of approved and trustworthy pills, manufactured and marketed by companies which have passed our rigorous tests, and which never use the techniques described above.
