Counterfeit supplements: Have you been conned?
For many of us, taking nutritional supplements to maintain good health and prevent deficiencies has become a daily ritual. But are we aware of what we’re really putting into our bodies?
‘A scammer’s paradise’
With the pervasiveness of counterfeit supplements on online marketplaces, we now need to be extra cautious about what we’re buying and who we’re buying it from.
Unscrupulous resellers will always try to exploit any site that lists products from third-party sellers. Amazon and eBay in particular have been accused of being a scammer’s paradise.
But how is it so easy for fake products to slip through the net?
Sellers on Amazon are not required to provide a certificate of authenticity, so essentially anyone can sell whatever they’d like with minimal, if any, checks.
Scammers and dishonest sellers may line supplements with cheap and harmful ingredients. But, they almost always create fake labels to resemble the packaging of a legitimate and well-established brand to intentionally, but subtly, deceive potential customers.
The selling point is the ‘discounted’ price-tag; supplements can be expensive, and anything on the cheaper end of the scale will always lure people in, making those on a low budget very easy targets. And, realistically, most people never think to look at the ingredients list or have any idea of how to spot a counterfeit product.
In 2019, it was publicised that a third-party purveyor on Amazon had been selling counterfeit supplements. Amazon customers had been misled by forged packaging and purchased what they had assumed to be Align probiotics. Align is a brand of the multinational parent company Procter & Gamble, but in this case it was a brand posing as Align and trading fake replicas.
When Amazon had been made aware that one of their merchants had been selling counterfeits, they only listed Align products on their site under the condition that they were directly received from Procter & Gamble.
However, Amazon chose not to publish the contents of the fake probiotics, so we can’t know for certain if they had ill-effects on anyone who consumed the product.
Are nutritional supplements regulated?
According to the UK Government, supplements including vitamins, minerals and amino acids fall under the category of foodstuffs, and are regulated under relevant legislation such as the Food Safety Act and the EC Food Supplements Directive. Sellers of food supplements are also required to register as a Food Business Operator (FBO). These provisions are in place to make sure that labels are not misleading and that the product is safe to consume.
However, FBOs are not legally obligated to register their products with the UK Government.
How can you tell when supplements are fake?
Here’s 5 things you should be looking out for before you consider buying supplements online:
The product description. If it doesn’t state the amount in milligrams of each ingredient and the percentage of the active ingredient it contains, you may be dealing with a fake.
The brand itself. If it sells a strange array of products that bear no relation to each other, it’s very likely a reseller and not a trustworthy manufacturer. They probably don’t have the level of expertise required to carry out sufficient safety checks in comparison to brands that exclusively sell supplements and health products, so it’s best to avoid buying from them.
The review section. Any review under a fake product is likely to be a sham. You should take notice of poor spelling and grammar or anything phrased in a peculiar way, the overuse of pronouns like ‘I’ and ‘me’, reviews that give the product a lot of praise without giving any detail, accounts with no images, and people that have only reviewed the one product or given 5 stars to lots of products.
If you’re still not sure whether the reviews you’re reading are fake, try out fake review detection apps like Fakespot for peace of mind.
Whether they appear elsewhere online. If you can only locate the brand on Amazon or Ebay, it’s not a good sign. Established companies should generally always have a presence on social media platforms, or at least have their own website.
They have guarantees, but they’re extremely vague. Perhaps a brand will mention something about a ‘manufacturer’s guarantee’ but not disclose anything about what it is and the safetynet it can provide for customers.
The bottom line is: avoid buying your health supplements online whenever you can. As tempting as it may be to purchase supplements at a discounted price, it’s far more important to know what you’re putting into your body.
Important: If you’ve consumed a fake or out-of-date supplement and you think it’s affecting your health, please seek professional medical advice or visit your GP immediately.
If you have purchased a counterfeit product as a result of misleading labelling, you should always consider exercising your right to take action. Find Others allows you to find others that have also been deceived by dishonest sellers, so you don’t have to fight alone. To prevent this happening to anyone else, start a campaign, petition or legal case today using our free tools.