How to use Common Sense to avoid Health Supplement Rip-Offs!

From time to time we hear horror stories about manufacturers and merchants in the health industry producing a snake-oil product and selling it to the public for enormous sums of money. The alternative health supplement industry is poorly regulated, and there is little preventing shysters from marketing a “new” weight loss supplement in a nice bottle with a shiny label. Who knows what is actually in that bottle? Maybe it contains some pills with a few vitamins, some sugar or starch powder or occasionally maybe even a product that actually works.

The first thing you need to remember when buying a health supplement is that you should focus on companies with a quality reputation. The larger health supplement manufacturers didn’t get that big by accident … their business plan has got to be based on long term product sales, and that means they have to produce a product that consumers will consistently buy year after year. In other words: they must consistently produce good, quality products.

Shysters don’t have to do this … they can produce a small run of a $2.99 vitamin pills, market it as the “greatest” vitamin because of its “super-absorbancy” at the “nano-mico-cellular level” (blah blah blah) and sell it to an unsuspecting public for $49.95. When the public gets wise, they simply stick a different label on their product and call it “Improved Super Premium Plus.” You get the picture.

So how do you find those quality companies? Easy. Do a little homework using an Internet search engine. Try to find some unbiased reviews of a company and their products. Here is a hint: if a site sells products from the company in question, their reviews are NOT unbiased. (On the other hand, if a site sells competing products, you can rest assured their reviews are not unbiased either.)

You need to look for information sites that do not sell products at all. Some informational sites may have a review or description about a manufacturer, while others may review their products. One of the best known unbiased health supplement review sites on the Internet is NutritionalTree.com. You also probably will find some forums and blogs where people describe their experiences with that particular company. Read what they have to say, but be careful: many blogs that seem to promote a product are really fake – the shyster companies that sell the products often also set up blogs praising their product.

If you find that the company has been around for years and has a loyal following of happy customers, then that may be all you need to know. If on the other hand, you see that it has been around for one year and its owners have just indicted for fraud or that there are entire sites dedicated to angry former customer complaints, then you should move on.

Most probably, when you find a legitimate company, you will find a lot of good reviews as well as some bad reviews. All companies have a few customers who are unhappy enough to voice their problems on the Internet out of “revenge” or for whatever reason. Try to get a general sense of the overall feelings toward the company. Do most comments seem to be positive? Do the negative comments seem valid or is the customer just being way too picky? For instance, is a customer complaining that they don’t like the International shipping policy to Cambodia? This probably won’t affect you.

What happens if I don’t find any information about the company?

This one is easy. If there is no information about it found on the Internet, then it isn’t legit. Simple as that.

The argument comes up that it might be a new, legitimate company with a new, innovative product without much history yet. This is a possibility, but you are still taking a chance. If the company has a worthwhile product, two things will happen within one year: 1) customer feedback will start to appear on the Internet and 2) larger, legitimate companies will come out with their own versions of the product. 

So don’t be hasty, give it some time. Or if you are determined to take the chance, gamble your money and see what you get. Only once you have done that, do the rest of the world a favor and get your thoughts about the product or company (positive or negative) out there in a forum or blog or review site so others like you can benefit!