facebookA south London hospital has issued a warning after a fraudulent video purporting to show staff recommending weight loss products went viral online.
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust said the videos, found on social media platforms such as Facebook and TikTok, “falsely claim that large numbers of clinicians use and endorse these products”.
The trust said the video, which shows doctors applying weight-loss patches to their bodies and losing weight over a period of time, appears to have been generated by AI and does not show the doctors working there.
The BBC contacted the company and the doctor it claims is behind the product, but did not receive a response.
Dr Dhagni Rajasingam, the trust’s deputy chief medical officer, told the BBC that staff were “actively working” to remove the video.
“They are fraudulent and misleading,” Mr. Rajasingham said.
“NHS clinicians would never endorse or promote commercial products like this.”
The doctor urged people to seek health advice on weight loss from “reliable NHS sources”.
“We need to realize that AI-generated images can be very good,” she added.
facebookGraham Barrow, a financial crime expert and host of the podcast Dark Money Files, told the BBC that both the ad itself and the social media accounts sharing the content were “ridiculous”.
When asked why the video was made, Barrow said it was ultimately about money.
“This product they are promoting is actually available for purchase on reputable online marketplaces,” he said, adding that he believes there is a chance that consumers will actually receive the product if they order it, but cautioned.
Barrow further stated that the product itself is a “natural herbal product.”
“The real scam here is that they’re trying to convince you to buy a product that may or may not work. I don’t know, but all the people they claim to be doctors, former dieters, etc. are complete garbage.”
facebook“If there’s an opportunity to make money on something, fraudsters are going to be the first to do it, and something as big as a weight loss pill like this is too good an opportunity to pass up,” said Barrow, who advises companies on financial crime and its various pretenses.
He said he used online tools to investigate the Facebook profile page of one of the so-called doctors who was sharing weight loss ads.
Using an image search, he was able to discover a doctor’s profile photo that came from a woman who was featured in a Romanian bank ad.
Mr Barrow said the ad also claimed the weight loss patch was “manufactured in the UK”, but the packaging shown in the video “obviously had a French flag on it”.
He said another sign that “things weren’t right” was that all of the 1,000 followers on the doctor’s Facebook profile page were Vietnamese. He said such clues should help people spot fake accounts.
“The point is, the people selling this product are trying to circumvent your rational response. They want you to think that you really want to buy this product because you want to lose weight. And when that emotion takes over, it’s very easy to stop thinking clearly and just think, ‘Oh, this is for me,’ and spend your money,” Barrow said.
He urged people to do “basic checks” on products before purchasing.
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust said it would ask anyone who finds the video online to report it to the social media platform where it was shared.
Additional reporting by Lotta Haegg
