Dr. Oz Confronts Online Scammers
Dr. Oz talked on his show today about scammers who are using his name online without his permission. Dr. Oz said he is very concerned about these scammers because he has no idea what these products are and he doesn’t endorse them.
For the second time, Dr. Oz and his team went undercover to expose these scams. Last year, he went after Tarr Inc, a company using his name and image without his permission to sell a bogus product. He went to their office and confronted them.
Dr. Oz talked about online scammers using his name to sell bogus weight loss supplements, as well as how you can spot a scam. (stevendepolo / flickr)
They found that the product, Garcinia Cambogia, didn’t have the chemicals it claimed it did. Despite what they found, Tarr Inc continued to sell the products. Dr. Oz found out that this product was made by Private Label Nutraceuticals. He found a video online of a PLN executive bragging about how easy it was to make money using Dr. Oz’s image.
Dr. Oz sent members of his team to a industry convention rigged with secret cameras in search of the PLN booth. They talked to Private Label vice president Brian Hamilton. He revealed that his product was on Dr. Oz and that even though it was bad press, it was still good for them. It didn’t make a dent in sales.
Dr. Oz: Testing Sketchy Supplements
Brian did give Dr. Oz’s team samples of their products, including Garcinia Cambogia, Green Coffee, and Forskolin. Dr. Oz also bought some of the products online.
Both samples were sent to a lab to be tested twice. Dr. Oz talked to Tod Cooperman from Consumer Lab. He said that every single one of the products sent by Private Label failed their test. They didn’t contain the listed amount of active ingredients on the label. The products bought online were a little bit different. The Forskolin passed the test, but the Garcinia Cambogia and the Green Coffee failed.
Todd Cooperman said these are terrible results. In the U.S., the products are required to have 100 percent of what they list on the label.
Dr. Oz reached out to PLN to comment. They said, in part, “Private Label Neutraceuticals continues to make every effort to ensure that our products are of the highest quality and that the finished products we supply to our clients are independently tested, verified, and meet label claims.”
Afterwards, they sent a cease and desist letter and threatened to sue The Dr. Oz Show if they talked about this publicly.
Dr. Oz: How Safe are Supplements?
Tod Cooperman said that if you walk off the street into a store and buy an herbal weight loss supplement, you have about a 13 percent chance of a problem with the product. If the product is exclusively sold online, you have a 41 percent chance of a problem.
Tod Cooperman said that in the last year, there’s been a 25 percent decrease in the number of people who use weight loss supplements. He said that the things Dr. Oz is saying are having an impact on the marketplace.
Dr. Oz: How to Spot an Online Supplement Scam
Next, Dr. Oz talked to consumer reporter Elisabeth Leamy, who said that this is an easy-money industry, which means it attracts sketchy activity. She said to protect yourself, you should buy products from big name, brick-and-mortar retailers. These places have more to lose if their products don’t meet requirements.
Elisabeth Leamy said that weight loss supplements, body building supplements, and intimacy enhancement supplements are the products with the biggest amount of recalls.
She said legitimate companies do not advertise their products in spam emails and internet pop-up ads. Do your research and do business with companies that you seek out, not the ones that come after you.
You also know it’s bogus when you hear extreme claims. Elisabeth Leamy showed an image of an ad that claims to be “the natural pill that erases age.”
Another tipoff is if they use Dr. Oz’s image. Dr. Oz doesn’t endorse products, so none of these pills using his image are telling the truth.
Leave a Reply