Occasionally we get e-mails and telephone calls from people saying that our prices are expensive compared with another website that the customer has found. When we examine the rival website, we can find no evidence that the medications offered are coming from a legitimate source so we warn the customers that the product is unlikely to be genuine given the price difference and the fact that the website does not seem to comply with regulatory guidelines. Some take our advice and purchase from The Online Clinic and others, inevitably, decide to take their chances with the cheaper website. Invariably these people come back to The Online Clinic after a bad experience they have with the other website – either medication not being delivered or the medication having no discernible effect.
The regulatory authorities are getting tough with the counterfeiters and there are moves afoot to make their lives even more difficult in the future. Just two weeks ago we heard about a large counterfeiting ring in Europe being smashed by the authorities in France. The ring included a UK citizen who was involved in the counterfeiting of Acomplia – the popular weight loss medication. The investigation was initiated by the public health department of the Paris public prosecutor’s office and led to simultaneous raids in five European countries: France; Sweden; Denmark; the Netherlands; and Romania.
The French investigators said that they uncovered an international traffic in counterfeit Acomplia which was produced in very unhygienic conditions and then sold over the internet to an unsuspecting public.
If you see websites selling medication for ridiculously cheap prices then you should be wary of doing business with them. We have a policy of matching the prices offered by any regulated UK website. Anything that looks suspicious, we will report to our regulator – the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency.