How Do You Know if Supplement Endorsements are Fake?

Whether it’s apple cider vinegar or white bean extract, it seems like there’s a new weight loss miracle supplement on the market every day. The latest to hit the public sphere is raspberry ketone which is a compound of the fruit very publicly endorsed by Dr Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon who has his own television show in the US.

Following this endorsement, the market has seen a splurge of companies promoting their own version of a raspberry ketone product. Ketone Premium is one such company, but it seems as though this is one of many who don’t really have overall customer wellbeing in mind. Ketone Premium’s “trial supplement” offer annoyed customers who didn’t realise that taking part in the free trial automatically tied them into a contract to purchase a certain amount of supplement per month.

An article from the well-renowned Women’s Health site also raised eyebrows about Ketone Premium. Raspberry Ketone Exposed: Miracle Diet or Scam, reviews two products; Ketone Premium and Cleanse Premium, but when you click on the Cleanse Premium hyperlink in the body of the article, it takes you to the Ketone Premium website. The same is true of each link at the top of the page to go back to the Women’s Health homepage, which instead takes you to the Ketone Premium website.

According to Stephen Willard, an independent branding professional, the supposedly official Women’s Health article, was, in fact, a fake. ‘I knew this was a fake within seconds,’ he said. ‘The live feeds, such as the weather widget, are purely fixed graphics that do not update. And, as already discovered, the hyperlinks all link back to the product’s sales portal. Further to this, copy has been written with extreme bias. The reviews towards the bottom of the page are rather dubious and far too flattering and inconsistent with the feedback you’d expect from even the most popular of products. The posting dates also change day by day which again is another clue as to their authenticity.’

The article contained endorsements from various well known entities The Guardian, Lorraine, This Morning, all of whom categorically deny ever mentioning raspberry ketones at all. The article’s supposed author, journalist Julia Miller, wasn’t even a real person, but popped up on various supplement “articles” with under different stock photos. As Willard explained, ‘At first glance consumers would quite rightly be convinced by the (false Women’s Health) website. Only when appraised from a technical perspective it is evident that it is in fact a complete façade’.