There are a great number of online pharmacies that offer drugs at much lower prices than your local drugstore. It can be extremely tempting to take up these offers to get your meds for a much more affordable cost. However, while the prices may seem low and the offers great, there are some risks. Most people won’t realize that there are far more scam pharmacies online than legit ones. And what’s more, is that most people won’t be able to tell the difference between a reliable store and one that you will regret using. We look through the potential and often very likely risks of shopping online for your medical needs with a drugstore that isn’t trustworthy.

Counterfeit Pills

Often scam drugstores will be trying to convince you that they offer genuine brand name pills. The reality, however, is very often counterfeit medications. These pills though they might look the same and come in packaging which looks genuine, the results of taking the drugs may be completely different.

If the pills contain the same ingredients, they still might not work the same way as the genuine brand pills do. There is no way to be sure, however, if the counterfeit drugs do contain the correct ingredients.

 

Fake Drugs

Even pharmacies that don’t sell brand name drugs could be selling low-quality fake drugs. These may not contain the ingredients which they are supposed to contain or they may not be the strength they claim to be even if the right ingredients are included.

The pills could have dangerous ingredients that are toxic if consumed. There have been fake pills discovered containing rat poison, for example.

 

Consequences of Low-Quality Drugs

While the consequences of bad pills might be very quickly obvious to people taking the meds. With adverse reactions and illness which isn’t expected, there are some other results which are all the more difficult to come to terms with.

If the pills that you’ve received seem to be working without causing you any problems, you may think that they are doing their job and your cheap pills are fine. However, if the pills contain a smaller amount of active ingredients than they are supposed to, this could lead to serious consequences.

If this happens it is likely that your health won’t improve as it should and you will get gradually worse. Since you are unaware of the problem, neither you nor your doctor will understand what has gone wrong as your condition gets increasingly worse.

This will lead to more serious medical intervention to help your condition or your illness getting to the point where doctors can no longer help you.

 

Low Standards

Even if the drugs are correctly manufactured with the correct ingredients there could still be problems. There was a case where the US FDA visited an Indian pharmaceutical company, only to find an open drain in a room that was meant to be producing meds in sterile conditions.

In particular, there is a problem of smaller medical manufacturers in India. They are often producing pills in conditions you would not hope or expect to find in a US pharmaceutical manufacturer, for instance.

 

No Regulation

Regulation brings with it many safeguards for customers of online pharmacies. Dubious pharmacies don’t have any regulations to protect their customers. Sometimes there will be fake regulation claims from countries they aren’t based in, but whatever the case, it puts shoppers on the store at risk in a few ways:

• Your personal information could be compromised
• Your financial details were stolen
• Email address sold to spammers
• Pills not dispensed safely

If your information is compromised it could be taken and used to commit fraud. This type of identity theft can do damage to your credit score which will lead to difficulties when trying to get a loan, and a higher interest rate if you do.

No one likes getting spam emails. There have been many cases of email addresses being spammed following order with an online pharmacy that isn’t operating to any regulations.

With no regulations in place, you have no guarantees that the pills you have ordered are being dispensed by people properly qualified to do so. This is something that should be carried out by qualified pharmacists because of the risks involved if things are wrong.

Many online pharmacies lack any such regulation and the drugs are likely to be dispensed in an unreliable way. The only way to be sure that you are kept safe is to check the details with the latest pharmacy reviews in 2020.

 

Deception

Regulation requirements vary in different countries and we have often found that pharmacies aren’t actually located in the country they claim to be based. This shows that the owners of stores are frequently unconcerned about what they tell people, happy to lie to get sales, which leaves you wondering what else they are lying about on their store.

When we review a scam pharmacy we often see lie after lie. With everything from how long they have been in business to their customer testimonials being fake. If you think the lies stop when it comes to the meds they sell to people, you would be sadly mistaken.

If you find yourself on a drugstore like this, you simply can’t trust anything which they are saying to you. The deceptions they use are on the store’s pages because they work. Take fake testimonials, these show potential customers that other people in a similar situation to them ended up buying pills from that pharmacy. This gives that person more confidence to complete their purchase with the store, only later will they realize the mistake they were conned into.

 

Organized Crime

For criminals, selling pills online is far less of a risk than selling illegal drugs. When you go to a disreputable online pharmacy you could be helping fund criminal organizations and contributing to other forms of crime including people trafficking.

 

Credit Card Fraud

Would you give your credit card details to an anonymous person? What about if you don’t even know which country they are in? Of course, you wouldn’t.

However, when ordering from many online pharmacies, this is exactly what you are doing. Is this risky? Of course.

Even if the order seems to go well, without any hitches, months down the line you could find strange charges appearing on your credit card statement. You will have to hope that the credit card company believes you when you tell them that it is not a payment you have made. Otherwise, you will have to pay for the mistake of ordering medication from a site that stole your credit card information.

 

Lack of Security

Even if the owner of the pharmacy website is doing everything above board, there can still be issues. Many less reputable online pharmacies lack the bare minimum level of security.

If there isn’t a valid SSL certification on the site, this means that when you fill out the form, adding your credit card information and hit send it travels across the Internet unencrypted. This will allow criminals to intercept this data and see what it contains. In this case, they will have your credit card information, which can be sold on or used by the person themselves to commit fraud at your expense. You need to check the latest pharmacy reviews 2020 to make sure you avoid these issues.

 

Not Receiving Your Order

Paying for pills online and then not getting what you’ve ordered happens more often than you would imagine. It isn’t just like shopping on Amazon with extremely fast delivery, you could be waiting for a month for your pills to arrive. Your current supply may have run out before you get the new order and this could leave you in a very difficult situation.

Often drugs will be caught up in customs. Since the importation of drugs is frequently illegal, depending on quantity and type among other factors, the US Customs officials will pay attention, sometimes confiscating the pills.

If you are affected by this situation, the online pharmacy may resend your order if you are lucky. Often, however, their customer support will be nonexistent or difficult to contact and you won’t get your order reshipped.

Some scam pharmacies will never actually send an order you pay for. If this happens, and you are dealing with a company that provides limited contact information, you don’t have many options. Since you won’t be sure of the country they are located even, it is virtually impossible to get your money back or your order.

 

Conclusion

With high medical costs, you can’t be blamed for looking for more affordable solutions to stay healthy. But if you don’t understand what the risks are and how to make sure you stay safe, you can quickly run into problems.

As you can see, the results of ordering drugs from an untrustworthy online source can be very grave. You need to be very careful so you don’t fall victim to a scam pharmacy. The best way to avoid problems is to check up to date pharmacy reviews 2020, which should help you steer clear of the scams.