The Rise of Fake Healthcare Product Scams

During a recent investigation, we exposed a multi-platform scam network that impersonates healthcare providers to promote fake or non-existent health products. The findings were published in a New York Times article titled: The Doctors Are Real, but the Sales Pitches Are Frauds. The coordinated operation spans across social media, paid ads, and dedicated scam websites, putting patients’ safety and brand reputations at serious risk.

The pharma scam BrandShield investigation revealed a large, coordinated scam operation impersonating trusted healthcare providers. What started with a few suspicious domains quickly revealed a sprawling, multi-platform network that exploited paid ads, social media, and scam websites.

At its core is a surge of fake ads promoting fake “miracle” health products for chronic conditions: GLP-1 weight-loss alternatives, arthritis creams, bronchitis inhalers, glaucoma drops, and more. These products are completely fraudulent.

To build trust, scammers use stolen identities of real doctors, including professional photos and fake endorsements. Ads and websites display fake medical seals, regulatory logos, and AI-generated before-and-after images to enhance credibility.

These scams don’t stop with social media. The same fake products are increasingly appearing on major marketplaces like eBay and Amazon, making it harder to tell what’s real and what’s fake.

This kind of operation is familiar to BrandShield. Their goal is consistent: exploit desperate people searching for trending health products by selling convincing fakes.

While patient safety is obviously the top concern, our expertise is in fighting online scams, impersonation, phishing and fraud, so that will be our focus here. We’re sharing this case publicly due to the immense popularity of these treatments and the serious harm posed to consumers and brands alike.

 

Anatomy of a Modern Medical Scam

While this scam network targets a wide range of medical conditions, we’ve chosen to share a case study of fake GLP-1 weight loss products (to clarify – these are not counterfeits of real GLP-1 products, but rather completely fake drugs that are not real).

The Entry Point It begins with a polished Facebook ad from a seemingly legitimate healthcare provider – here, supposed GLP-1 weight loss drops with the “brand” name Peaka. The ad uses the identity of Dr Robert Lustig, a well-known doctor specializing in obesity, and also features the logos of the American Diabetes Association, the Obesity Society, the Federal Drug Administration and a Good Manufacturing Practices Patch – implying endorsement by these organizations. This is entirely fake.

The Convincing Backstory

The ads often originate from Facebook pages impersonating actual doctors and healthcare professionals. Scammers often choose well-known or respected physicians and use their full name, professional headshot, and real academic credentials. These profiles are disturbingly convincing; they often have thousands of likes and followers, are populated with photos, links to online articles, and educational posts. Nevertheless, the page is entirely fake, constructed to make the scam profile, the ad, and the product seem more convincing. The real professionals are likely completely unaware that they are being impersonated.

Often these aren’t new profiles. Many were created years ago for unrelated purposes, likely different scams by the same threat actors, and later opportunistically repurposed. Admin details are hidden, and many trace back to Hong Kong or Southeast Asia, places with which the real Doctor is not connected.

The Final Trap: A Scam Website

In this example, clicking the ad on Dr. Lustig’s profile leads to a website (https://amerielitefinds.com) selling Peaka “GLP-1 slimming pearls”. The site features phony endorsements from real health organizations and regulatory bodies, as well as fake compliance accreditations, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), National Sanitation Foundation (NSF), and the Conformité Européenne (CE) mark. 

Ground zero of the scam  

Investigations into the contact information listed on these scam websites have revealed that the same or similar company names, email formats, and addresses are reused across multiple sites.

These details trace back to at least five shell companies registered in Hong Kong, all created within a narrow time window, and registered to virtual office addresses in the Sheung Wan and Kwun Tong districts – areas known for cheap business registration services. This pattern strongly suggests a centralized network designed to launch, cycle, and retire fake stores rapidly while evading enforcement.

When caught, these scammers simply abandon the site, rename the product, and relaunch new ads from a new fake profile to begin the cycle again.

In short, patients are tricked through a sophisticated and multi-layered scam into purchasing illicit products. At best, these scams only steal patients’ money and do not deliver a product. Alternatively, the products fail to deliver the promised medical benefits. At worst, they pose serious health risks and can severely damage the reputation of a legitimate brand.

Here are some brands whose logos have been misused:

• American Diabetes Association
• Deutsche Diabetes Gesellschaft
• Diabetes Ireland
• Diabetes UK
• European Association for the Study of Diabetes
• La Fédération Française des Diabétiques
• Federation Mexicana de Diabetes, A.C.
• Sociedad Mexicana de Obesidad
• The Obesity Society (USA)
• Australia and New Zealand Obesity Society
• Federal Drug Administration
• Comision Federal para la Proteccion contra Riesgos Sanitarios (The Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks in Mexico)
• Mattilsynet (Norwegian Food Safety Authority)
• Health Canada
• Department of Health (Australia)
• European Food Safety Authority
• Health Products Regulatory Authority (Ireland)
• Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (UK)
• Mayo Clinic
• CE marking
• GMP certification marking
• ISO marking
• Le Monde
• Many individual doctors and healthcare professionals.

Brands are starting to respond

Recognizing this growing threat, Diabetes Canada has issued a public warning, making it clear that it does not endorse any medical products and that the use of its name and logo in these ads is completely unauthorized and fraudulent.

The Case for a Holistic Brand Protection Strategy

Traditional tactics like manual takedowns and domain monitoring simply can’t match the speed and scale of these modern threat actors. Furthermore, not all Online Brand Protection providers can identify threats on all the necessary mediums including paid advertisements, social media, and websites. What is needed is a comprehensive, scalable, and predictive solution that proactively hunts and eliminates these scams before they damage your brand.

BrandShield:

• Detects scams at every level, from fake endorsements on paid ads, to social media impersonation, to counterfeit or misleading sales websites and online marketplaces. We also detect organized scams like this across mobile app stores and the darkweb.

• Investigates the infrastructure behind coordinated scams, analyzing lookalike threats to understand the bigger picture, identify their origins, and cut the head off the snake. We also prioritize remediation of those risks with the greatest potential impact on your business.
• Eliminates online scams with rapid takedowns supported by AI-driven technology, a 24/7 SOC Team and experienced IP-trained lawyers and cybersecurity threat hunters. We don’t just find online scams – we take them down.

Introducing AI.ClusterX: The Future of Threat Intelligence

Threats don’t exist in isolation. Scammers use repeatable tactics and launch campaigns using shared infrastructure. BrandShield has long been a pioneer in the Threat Clustering space, helping brands scale their Online Brand Protection by seeing attacks not as isolated incidents, but where applicable, as part of larger threat networks and campaigns.

To that end, BrandShield recently announced the latest development in our clustering technology: AI.ClusterX, a next-generation threat intelligence engine that allows BrandShield to analyze thousands of assets and group them into clusters for efficient remediation and bulk takedowns.

In short, that means while other Online Brand Protection vendors may well be able to detect and remediate some aspects of the scams we detailed today, BrandShield finds more, at every touchpoint, across multiple digital mediums – and takes them all down at once.

Final Thoughts

Scammers are weaponizing brand credibility at every digital touchpoint, impersonating trusted names, hijacking search results, and luring patients toward dangerous, unregulated products. Healthcare highlights the threat in its most dangerous form.

At BrandShield, we empower healthcare brands and professionals to reclaim control: with the tech, expertise, and insight to detect, dismantle, and defeat coordinated threat networks at scale as well as eliminate impersonation to executives and professionals.

Book a demo and learn how BrandShield can help.