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Dr. Oz recently blew the whistle on the huge industry of dubious diet products being sold online and in particular the issue of fake endorsements, which has been a problem for him.

“I can tell you from my own personal experience you can’t always believe what you see,” he said, noting that hundreds of websites turned up about acai and resveratrol after he and Oprah talked about them on one of her shows. The sites claim that their products are endorsed by Dr. Oz and Oprah.

The pair have filed a lawsuit against more than 30 companies that have used their names and images illegally. But it’s not easy to track down the owners of these websites to take action against them, as ABC’s Jim Avila explained.

His reporting for “20/20″ showed that one of the most famous faces found on Internet diet aid ads these days is a fake, used on multiple websites that claim to tell the stories of people who’ve had success with a particular product.

In reality, the woman’s image came from a stock photography site and she didn’t lose weight at all, but was manipulated with Photoshop to look skinny.

False endorsements

Avila and Oz noted that fake endorsements are one of the biggest problems with diet aids being sold on the Internet.

“I want to be crystal clear on this: any health supplement product that’s claiming to have my endorsement is false,” Oz said. “I don’t endorse any health supplement products” and he’s never allowed his name or image to be used to promote such products.

But it’s not just celebrities who are used in false endorsements. Mom Brook lost 65 pounds in nine months by cutting out fast food, sugary drinks and fatty snacks as well as working out two hours a day, six days a week to get down to 115 pounds.

She shared her story and before and after pictures on SparkPages, where she hoped to provide motivation to others and show that with hard work, others could reach their goals, too.

Two years later she saw her pictures being used in a banner ad for a weight loss product on Facebook, promoting a product she’d never heard of, used or given permission to use her images. She’s also been featured in ads for weight loss teas and on websites sharing her “story” that are totally false.

“My weight loss was something I did entirely on my own and it’s very upsetting my great personal accomplishment is being used without my permission to trick others,” she said.

Trial periods

Another big way to scam people online is through the use of free trial periods. Websites of this sort often look like news reports with big ads noting a limited time offer or a limited supply at a free trial price (customers pay for shipping, which gets the companies their credit card numbers and sets up the scam).

Reading the fine print on these offers will often show that a free trial leads automatically to a monthly shipment that’s often quite costly and difficult to stop. You might not even get the product until days before the free trial ends, so you don’t have time to try it out before the billing starts.

What’s more, it can be difficult to track down who to contact to get your membership cancelled, as one viewer noted. You might even end up with strange charges on your account, as another viewer experienced.

Protecting yourself

If you’ve already gotten stuck in a “free trial” gone awry and you can’t get the company to stop charging you, call your credit card company and tell them you don’t authorize payments to that company.

Dr. Oz suggests avoiding any supplements that lack the United States Pharmacopia seal, which indicates that products have been tested for purity.

It’s also important to check out companies on the Better Business Bureau website. If you have a complaint against a company, file it there, as well as with the Federal Trade Commission, you state’s attorney general’s office and the Internet Crime Complaint Center, which is run by the FBI.

(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 11th, 2009 and is filed under Diet pills, drugs, supplements and devices, Diet scams and myths. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Permalink.