All sorts of weight loss plan pills will be purchased on eBay, including those with unsafe or illegal ingredients.
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BBuying weight loss plan pills online without medical advice carries a certain risk. Buying on eBay will be particularly dangerous.
Earlier this 12 months, eBay agreed to a $59 million settlement with the Justice Department to resolve allegations that the corporate facilitated criminals’ purchase of pill presses that might be used to make counterfeit drugs. But as a previously unpublished FBI investigation shows, the e-commerce giant still has an issue with counterfeit drugs.
According to a government arrest warrant, an eBay buyer reported that he purchased Skald brand weight loss plan pills that he believed were from a legitimate manufacturer, Beldt Labs. Shortly after he began taking them, he agreed to take a random drug test for his employer and tested positive for methamphetamine.
The baffled buyer told federal agents that after they checked reviews on the eBay listing, they found complaints from others who had similar experiences. According to the warrant, the FBI then purchased a few of the same pills and confirmed that they contained meth (which carries the danger of heart attack and stroke). Further investigation revealed that bottles of one other weight loss plan pill brand, PhenQ, contained the identical narcotic. According to the warrant, as much as 2,000 bottles of tainted pills have already been shipped to consumers. The Justice Department declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation.
Manufacturers of each brands said Forbes They have been battling counterfeits on eBay for years. “eBay is the biggest ongoing problem for us and many other sellers,” said James Atkins, CEO of Beldt Labs. “The problem is that it does not proactively exclude unauthorized resellers like Amazon and other platforms do.” Since April of this 12 months, there was a brand new Amazon politics requires that dietary supplements be tested by an independent testing organization approved by the technology giant.
Scott Dingwall, CEO of Wolfson, the maker of the PhenQ weight loss plan pills, reported similar problems. “Our legal team has made a vigorous effort to take down these scammers, but given the ubiquity of infringement and counterfeiting, the task can be difficult, especially when an infringer is removed and then reappears under a different name,” he said. Forbesand identified that his company had never sold its goods on eBay.
“Retailers are aware that these products are repeatedly contaminated with dangerous, often undisclosed ingredients.”
eBay has not responded to multiple requests for comment. eBay politics prohibits the sale of “contaminated food supplements that are FDA database.”
For years, nonetheless, eBay sellers have been selling contaminated pills on the FDA list with other potentially harmful ingredients and, in response to a Forbes Reviewing the recent offers on the web site, they still achieve this today. In the last month, Forbes reviewed eBay listings for weight loss plan pills and weight reduction products and located several examples of products which were warned by the FDA for holding controlled ingredients with potentially serious negative effects and will violate the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Two of the load loss products – Govvi, WOW! And Phentamene XT – each contained hidden substances that might contribute to “cardiovascular problems,” including heart attacks.
FDA spokeswoman Amanda Hils declined to comment on specific enforcement actions related to eBay, saying only that the agency “remains vigilant to protect the U.S. drug supply from counterfeits” and can “use all available regulatory and enforcement tools to stop the illegal flow of unsafe products online.”
In addition to the fake pills sold on eBay, there are also the truly toxic ones. Last June, the Justice Department sentenced 85-year-old William Merlino to 33 months in prison for selling weight-loss drugs on eBay that contained 2,4-dinitrophenol (“DNP”), an ingredient commonly present in herbicides, dyes and wood preservatives. Although it was once used as a fat-burning drug within the Thirties, it was later found to cause “dehydration, cataracts, liver damage and death, among other things,” in response to the Justice Department. wrote in its press release. Last 12 months, the FDA warned that weight-loss products called “Nuez de la India,” also marketed as “slimming seeds,” appeared to contain “highly toxic yellow oleander, a poisonous plant native to Mexico and Central America,” and were being sold on eBay and other online markets.
Dr. Sydney Bryn Austin, a professor at Harvard Medical School who has researched weight loss plan pill sales, said Forbes that counterfeiters proceed to sell through platforms like eBay because they will; federal regulators are far too weak to force online retailers to alter their practices. “Retailers know that these products have been found time and time again to be contaminated with dangerous, often undisclosed ingredients and are marketed with misleading claims, misleading consumers into believing the products are safe and effective when they are neither,” Austin said.
“Too many retailers are taking advantage of weak regulation, perhaps in the crude reasoning that if they can get away with it and make money, why not?”
