![\"Thousands](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_GettyImages-2233741710.jpg\")
<\/p>\nYou also need to check the packaging<\/p>\n
Neil Shaw Assistant Editor<\/p>\n
13:56, 19 Apr 2026<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Thousands of people now use the jabs<\/p>\n
As demand for weight-loss jabs shows no sign of slowing down, a new poll has found that criminals are exploiting this trend by impersonating online pharmacies to sell counterfeit injections. A survey of 100 online pharmacies by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), which represents around 6,000 pharmacies across Britain, found that around one in 10 pharmacies reported that their online presence was cloned by illicit sellers over the past year.<\/p>\n
Nearly two in five pharmacies also reported seeing patients who had unknowingly purchased fake weight-loss drugs within the past 12 months. Furthermore, almost all respondents (95.2%) said they are concerned about the illegal sale of these jabs and the risks that they pose.<\/p>\n
NPA board member Sehar Shahid, obesity specialist pharmacist and founder of 24HR Pharmacy, was among those whose businesses were cloned and she has shared seven key red flags of fake or unregulated weight-loss jabs to watch out for.<\/p>\n
1. Prices that seem to good to be true<\/p>\n
\u201cPrices will slightly differ from one provider to the next, but on average weight-loss medication usually starts from around \u00a3130 to \u00a3300,\u201d says Shahid. \u201cSo, if you\u2019re being offered a price that\u2019s far below the market range and it seems too good to be true, be cautious as it\u2019s likely that medication is not genuine.\u201d<\/p>\n
2. No consultation<\/p>\n
If a provider doesn\u2019t undertake a thorough video or in-person consultation before prescribing weight-loss medication, that\u2019s a clear red flag.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll regulated providers are responsible for having a two-way dialogue with patients and should undertake a full medical history check,\u201d says Shahid. \u201cThey should independently verify the patient\u2019s weight, check what medical conditions patients have and what medications they are currently on, because that impacts whether weight-loss medications are suitable or clinically appropriate or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also important that the provider checks things around mental wellbeing to see if the patient is fit to make decisions around their treatment and to check if there any history of eating disorders as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. Requests to transfer money<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone\u2019s asking you to do a bank transfer or to pay via PayPal or via Bitcoin, that\u2019s usually a red flag,\u201d says Shahid. \u201cAll regulated online pharmacies will make you pay with your card on their website through a regulated payment gateway and won\u2019t take payments over the phone or over messaging on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll transactions should be done through a registered website so the patient is protected.\u201d<\/p>\n
4. Incorrect, misspelled, or slightly altered domain name<\/p>\n
\u201cThese criminals have become very sophisticated and will replicate a legitimate website very well, so sometimes it\u2019s very hard for patients to spot a fake website upon first glance, but there are some key things that you can do,\u201d says Shahid.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery regulated registered pharmacy has to be registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council and should be displaying their registration number which then links through to the GPhC register. When you click onto the register, check under more details to see what the exact web domain name is for that registered licence, because these unregulated or illegal websites often add a letter or word which makes it different to the real domain name.\u201d<\/p>\n
5. Lack of communication<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of these criminal businesses that are posing as regulated pharmacies often don\u2019t speak to patients on the phone or have very minimal contact, so that is another red flag to look out for,\u201d says Shahid.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a patient, you want to be assured that you know who is providing and prescribing your medication. If you have any questions or concerns, you should be able to speak to somebody on the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n
6. Cloudy liquid<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually with the injections, the liquid should be clear,\u201d says Shahid. \u201cSo, if the liquid is not clear, is a different colour, is cloudy, or if there\u2019s any particles in it, that is a red flag and I would always advise a patient not to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n
7. Unsealed packaging<\/p>\n
\u201cThe packaging should always come sealed, so if that seal is broken I would be worried because the medication inside might have been tampered with,\u201d says Shahid.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso, if the packaging is discoloured, if the font doesn\u2019t look aligned, if there are no batch numbers or expiry dates on it, if it doesn\u2019t look like the original packaging or if it just looks poor quality, all these things could indicate that the product isn\u2019t genuine.\u201d<\/p>\n
What are the dangers of using counterfeit weight-loss jabs?<\/p>\n
\u201cAll regulated and licensed medications have gone through vigorous clinical trials so we understand what dose to give, what the potential side effects are, and how to use it,\u201d says Shahid.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, with anything that\u2019s fake, unregulated or hasn\u2019t been approved yet, you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re putting into your body. We won\u2019t know for sure what dose to give, what the side effects are, or how to take it. Therefore, anyone who is using something that\u2019s unregulated or fake will put themselves at risk of side effects and becoming really unwell.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition, a proper consultation with a healthcare professional is crucial.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe weight-loss jabs could interact with the other medications or other medical conditions that you already have, and it can be very difficult to then undo the damage that can be caused by an unregulated substance,\u201d says Shahid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You also need to check the packaging Neil Shaw Assistant Editor 13:56, 19 Apr 2026 Thousands of people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[134,524,111,139,69,560],"class_list":{"0":"post-388064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-medication","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-weight-loss"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}