Scammers use fake pics of top TV star page to promote slimming pills,
A slimming pill falsely claiming to have been endorsed on BBC’s Dragons’ Den has appeared in dozens of misleading online adverts, consumer group Which? has warned.
Researchers found 62 adverts for the product, called Nixol, in Meta’s ad library—many of which appeared to be published by scammers.
Some of the adverts falsely claimed the weight-loss tablets had been pitched to the Dragons, while others used the Dragons’ Den logo, images of investor Sara Davies MBE, or were posted from accounts named after the show.
Several ads also linked to websites impersonating Daily Mail news articles, mimicking MailOnline branding to appear credible.
Which? warned that such adverts are designed to mislead and may put consumers’ health at risk.
Most of the adverts claimed that Nixol was a ‘powerful remedy’ that could help users lose 26.5lb in just two weeks — a claim with no clinical backing.
Others claimed it was clinically tested by more than 29,000 men and women, has no side effects, and is 100 per cent natural.
Earlier this year, Ms Davies MBE, told BBC Morning Live she’d been made aware of fake adverts of her promoting weight loss tablets.
She revealed one of her friend’s mothers had spent £100 on slimming pills that never arrived after seeing one of them.
In a Instagram post she said, ‘they are all scams’ and that she’s currently working with legal teams at the BBC to get the ads taken down.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) warns against getting weight loss medications from anywhere other than a pharmacy or a doctor.
This is because, the Which? experts said: ‘Fake diet pills have been found to contain dangerous and illegal substances.’
The product testing company contacted Nixol about the ads but say it has had no response from its email address.
And when they tried calling up the number on the website, the experts said, ‘the call didn’t connect’.
Then, when they looked up their business unit address, they said: ‘It appears to be registered to another company.’
When they contacted the company that occupies the building, they told Which? they have no connection to Nixol and had never heard of them before.
The product testing website traced images used on one website to ‘several other places on the internet’.
This led them to find ‘some were from news articles’ as well as ‘real people who had lost weight via other methods’.
The experts also revealed the website featured an AI-generated image of judges on Dragons’ Den holding boxes of the slimming pill.
They said: ‘Another recently created website that was linked to from the ads impersonated the Daily Mail.’
‘This website was registered to the same location in Reykjavik, Iceland, where we also found several scam websites were registered to last year when we unpicked a global financial scam.’
This website, they said: ‘Led to a retail website where you can buy Nixol for £55 per month. It’s likely that buying this will lead to a subscription trap, which is a type of scam we’ve previously warned about.’
They also reported: ‘On Trustpilot, buyers of Nixol complained of the pills not working, not being able to obtain a refund and coming across the products after seeing a fake Daily Mail report.
‘One reviewer mentioned that a questionnaire they filled out advised them that they were obese, despite having a healthy BMI.’
Despite the product testing website reporting the ads to Meta who have taken them down, new ads promoting Nixol have already been posted.
The company Meta which owns several social media platforms told Which?, its health and wellness advertising policy prohibits certain weight loss products adds.
These include any featuring side-by-side before and after comparisons, close-ups to specific body areas or promote unhealthy or negative body images.
Lisa Webb, a consumer law expert for Which? told MailOnline: ‘It’s worrying, but sadly unsurprising, that scores of scam ads for dodgy Nixol diet pills have been allowed to slip through the net on popular social media platforms.’
