You've come across so much about people using slimming jabs to get slim, it feels like it is time to try them out ahead of the festive season. However, the issue lies in cost.
But it seems alternatives exist instead of obtaining a doctor's script and visiting the chemist. An SMS comes through providing a URL to a website with much cheaper drugs – and requiring no necessity to go through proper procedures. And you saw a similar ad on social media the other day, prompting you to go for it.
The catch is these ads are highly likely to be fraudulent schemes. At best, you'll receive nothing and lose whatever money you spent. In the worst, you obtain a counterfeit item, with unknown ingredients which may result in severe health problems.
The widespread use of legitimate slimming drugs has resulted in a rise in counterfeit products hitting the market and deceptive practices established to simply take consumers' cash.
Medical regulators have advised avoiding purchasing such unlawful weight loss medicines without a prescription from beauty salons, fake pharmacy websites or through social media, stating they might include “harmful substances and additional components which may provoke real harm”.
New figures from a high street bank show a significant surge in the quantity of customers who have been impacted by the scam. According to the bank, the amount of money stolen through fraudulent activities involving slimming jabs, injector pens, pills and lipid-reducing solutions during the third quarter this year, was more than double the overall amount stolen in the previous three months. The average scam sets back sufferers £120, it says.
“Fraudsters are actively exploiting people’s insecurities and medical worries, with such frauds skyrocketing in the past few months,” says a financial institution's fraud prevention lead.
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 slight variations in spelling or brand marks.
These communications or posts will often use urgency-laden phrases such as “time-sensitive deal”, “special promotion” or “complimentary gift”.
As the price of some legitimate weight loss jabs, has increased of late, the fraudsters will set the cost of their “product” more cheaply.
“Purchasing from unapproved vendors online can entail a serious monetary, medical and emotional cost,” warns the fraud expert.
What to do
As with all scams, the wise saying applies: should something seem too good to be true, then it probably is.
Health regulators have cautioned 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, they advise. When procured from other sources, they can present serious risks to wellbeing.
Criminals can expend considerable effort to make their site or online profile appear completely genuine. If they claim to be an online pharmacy based in Great Britain, it's possible to verify the website of the pharmaceutical regulatory body to ensure this is correctly licensed.
