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Fraud Tip of the Day - January 3

Diet Pill Scams. You'll lose money, not weight.

Was one of your New Year's resolutions to lose weight this year? Concern about weight is a dark cloud hovering over many of us as we start the new year. Many people try and fail to lose those extra pounds time and time again. Many become depressed and others desperate for a way to shed weight so that they can look and feel good again. The trouble is, con artists know it and have developed shrewd ways of picking your pocket while you search for something that works. As we begin the new year we are going to talk about some of these diet and weight loss scams in the hope that you save your money and efforts for weight loss methods that really work.

Diet Pills don't work

First, we are going to look at diet pill scams. These include metabolism-boosting pills based on herbal ingredients and fat-and carb-blocking pills. These scams aren't old. They were probably on the shelf under a different name 20 or 30 years ago but the message is always the same: Lose 20 pounds in 20 days, Stops fat and calories from being absorbed by your body. These products sound great and what a world it would be if they worked. Sadly, they're all based on bad science and don't help you lose weight. You'll lose money every time you purchase diet pills but your weight won't budge. We can't offer you a miracle to weight loss but we can give you some tips to help you identify diet pill scams.

Diet Pill Scam Tips:

Diet Pills are often unregulated. That's because many of them contain "herbal" ingredients that the FDA doesn't regulate as drugs. So any claims made by the diet pill manufacturers are not evaluated for accuracy. The upshot of this is that diet pills can claim to do almost anything and no one can say otherwise. An indication that a diet pill is an herbal product should make you suspicious no intrigued.
Metabolism-boosting/calorie-burning pills. These are the diet pills that promise to raise your metabolism so that you can just burn, burn, burn away calories or fat. There's always a new herbal metabolism booster containing herbal ingredients on the shelves. New ones appear and the old ones disappear. Do you know why? Besides the fact that regulation can't stop it, older herbal diet pills have been tried and eventually everyone knows deep down that they don't work. So the manufacturer often slaps a new name and label on the old pills and start over again. What's the diet pill of the week this week?
Fat-calorie-carb-blocking pills. These pills claim to block your body from absorbing calories, fat and carbohydrates. How bright could taking these diet pills be? You need to absorb some of the nutrients in the food you eat. Blocking your body from absorbing food can lead to all kinds of problems including gastrointestinal problems like diarrhea, bloating, and gas. Could this cure be worse than the disease? Why even risk it since its never been proven fat blocking pills play a part in substantial weight loss.