Posted By Paul on Mar 31, 2017 | 0 comments

So you’re in the market for fat burner. Make sense. A lot of people are.

Before you pull out your hard-earned money, there’s a few things you probably should know – especially if you’re buying online. It’s going to shock the hell out of you, and maybe by the end of this article you’ll decide to save your money go for a run instead.

So sit back and prepare to have your world rocked as we reveal…

So terrifying, you’ll buy a gym membership instead!

7 Frightening Facts about Fat Burners

… you wish we’d never told you.

Yeah. Really.

1. Any dipsh*t with enough money to buy a capsule filler on Amazon.com can sell fat burners online.

I bet you thought that only big, reputable companies with labs full of medical professionals and researchers in white coats were in the business of selling thermogenics. While there certainly are plenty of genuine companies that do so, online, the fact that you can’t actually “see” whom you’re buying from means you could be buying from virtually anyone. In fact…

… all you really need to sell fat burners online is…

1. 1. A professional looking web site (which is drop dead easy to do)
   2. A capsule filling machine.
   3. A few bottles.
   4. An injet printer
   5. Some bulk powder…

… which you can source from North America or for more profit, directly from China.

After you’ve saved up enough cash from ripping off folks with your crappy products, or are tired of tamping powder into tiny little capsules while you watch T.V. in your parent’s basement, it’s time to scale up production, and connect with a private label supplement manufacturer like Nutriscience Labs, CNLab Nutrition, and many others.

Now you’re really in the money!

Let me be clear; I’m not beating up on private label supplement manufacturers. They are obviously not responsible for the claims made by the unethical retailers that may use their services. They just make it easier for anyone to sell supplements.

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2. Testimonials for Fat Burners Mean Diddly-Squat (I’ll Show You Where You can Buy Them!).

Equating “research” with “reading the comments other people have left on a certain weight loss product to see if they like it” is a terrible idea. Most of the time, product feedback is restricted to the sites the product is sold on, which means it’s very, very easy to control or manipulate the message.

If the product is sold on the retailer’s own site, negative feedback simply doesn’t see the light of day. Over the years, we’ve had hundreds of people write us to share that the terrible feedback they left on a this or that product was never published on the retailer’s web site.

And, if the product is sold on a third party web site (say, Amazon.com), then you simply create an artificially inflated rating by paying people 10-50 cents a shot to leave a 4 or 5 star review on your product.

You can use Microworkers or Fiverr.com to do this.

Need a couple of really compelling video testimonials to really get people buying?

Lots of place to buy those, too. Like here, here, and here!

The long and short of testimonials?

You cannot confirm or authenticate them.

They are likely manipulated, and possibly even completely fabricated or outsourced.

In other words, they are valueless.

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3. Your Fat Burner Might be Spiked with Prescription or Illegal Drugs.

Test positive from drugs you never knowingly took!

According to MedPageToday, over half of the major drug recalls in the U.S. were for dietary supplements that contained illegal drugs.

The three most popular supplement types likely to be contaminated?

Sexual enhancement aids, body-building supplements, and yes, you guessed it… weight-loss products.

Uh-huh.

How’d you like to test positive for steroids for a work related drug test? When you never knowingly took any?

Or experience life threatening side effects because a contaminated product contained prescription drugs that interacted with the medication you are taking?

Contamination is not an issue to be taken lightly.

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4 … Or it Might Not Contain Any of the Ingredients Listed on the Label

In the spring of 2015 a big story broke; GNC, Target, Wal-Mart and Walgreens were accused of selling fake herbal supplements.

Fake, in that in some cases, the products tested didn’t actually contain any of the ingredients on the label. Even more concerning, several contained known allergens that could cause serious allergic reactions in people.

Now, I realize no fat burners were mentioned in this accusation. However, they shouldn’t be excluded; after all…

We’ve seen plenty of examples where weight loss products touting incredible benefits turned out to contain no active ingredients at all.

And…

I’d be willing to bet in most cases, the ingredients are all sourced by the same companies, from the same places.

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5. “Clinically proven” means absolutely ZERO when to comes to fat burners.

The term “clinically proven” gets thrown around a LOT by the folks who sell weight loss supplements and over the counter diet pills.

99.9 times out of 100, when this term is used the product in question has not been studied or proven effective.

Instead, the retailers are either lying outright (since people rarely check) or the term is being applied to select ingredients in the formula, which more often than not, are only included at a fraction of the dosage that was demonstrated effective in the study.

But even when something has actually been clinically proven, what does it really mean?

It means that the study showed the product or ingredient in question delivered statistically significant results.

Cool, huh?

Well, hold on a sec.

You’d would be correct in assuming that “statistically significant” means the results were pretty darn awesome. Like they showed the product worked gangbusters. Becase “significant”, right?

Alas, no.

In the world of clinical studies “statistically significant” does not mean “awesome”, “big”, “a lot” or anything of the sorts.

It means the results are unlikely to have happened by chance.

Yeah. Really.

So the term “clinically proven” could be used to breathlessly to describe a product that resulted in 1 pound of weight loss in 12 weeks.

Or even less.

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6. Free fat burner trial offers are a total scam!

If you are presented with an opportunity to try a fat burner for free, do not do so.

Seriously.

Because the trial is not really free.

You have to hand over your credit card for a small shipping or handling fee.

And your credit card is an absolute necessity, because within a short time, you’ll be added to a recurring billing program, where you’re shipped a bottle of the vastly overpriced product each and every month. You can cancel, of course, but good luck with that. The feedback we’ve received indicates that the only way out of such programs is to cancel your credit or debit card.

To make it easier on yourself, don’t bother.

Avoid the free trial scam.

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7) Doctor Formulated Weight Loss Formulas Aren’t Necessarily More Effective

I bought this picture online!

Since the word of a medical doctor has a lot of impact, online retailers like to use stock photos of doctors and other medical professionals on their sales sites to add authenticity to their claims.

You know the ones; the friendly looking doc with a stethoscope slung around his shoulders, like no real doctor ever, anywhere, has ever slung a stethoscope.

Yeah, just like the one here – which I purchased online.

Sometimes, retailers will simply lie that the person in question is a doctor (again, people rarely check), like the “fine” folks over at Basic Research LLC did when they claimed one their founders was one.

Or sometimes, the retailers will pay someone who can legally call themselves a doctor (a chiropractor, naturopath, Ph.D., etc.), to endorse the product.

Occasionally however, a product will be endorsed or formulated by a real “doctor.”

Like Sensa tastants, which were developed by Dr. Allan Hirsch. Sensa was fined US$26.5 million in 2014, for deceiving consumers with unfounded weight-loss claims and misleading endorsements.

Oh, and that’s in addition to the $6,000,000 class action suit that was filed against them.

In short, buying a doctor-formulated product does not isolate you from crummy products and outright scams.

Posting pictures of the company’s founder smoking weed and tamping unidentified white powder into a capsule filling machine while watching “Dr Who” reruns in his parents’ basement is not nearly as good for sales.

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BONUS Frightening Fat Burner Fact: Next to ZERO Oversight Means You’re On Your Own!

We’ve already seen that no official body is checking to see that what’s supposed to be in the bottle is actually in the bottle (independently, ConsumerLab does a great job of holding manufacturers to account).

But what about product claims?

I mean, it’s reasonable to assume that some agency somewhere is responsible for overseeing the advertising claims being made for these products, correct? To ensure they don’t “say” outrageous things entirely unsupported by facts?

The good news that there are agencies whose job includes just this; in the U.S., it’s the Federal Trade Commission. In Canada, it’s Health Canada. The problem is that both of these agencies are overworked and understaffed, and simply can’t keep up with the sheer volume of products.

While these agenices *do* great work and act against some pretty scummy operators, they tend only to be able to catch the biggest and most egregious violators – the ones who draw attention to themselves with national TV, radio, and print campaigns.

Given the ease and speed with which a new product can be created and sold online, you’re pretty operating on your own.

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How to Choose the Best Fat Burners for Your Weight Loss Program

Obviously, the product’s formula is important. But if we set that aside for a moment, here are some good and solid rules for making smart purchases…

1. 1. Buy from recognized brands: Sure, these products are not always WAY better or anything, but most reputable companies recognize their long term success is tied to keeping customers satisfied and most will provide you with some recourse if you’re unsatisfied with their products. After all, unsatisfied customers can do a lot of damage on the right social media channels if their messages go viral.
   2. Buy from trusted retailers: Smart retailers know that their own reputation is intimately tied to the products they sell. They can’t legitimately claim to have your best interests at heart if they sell crap. A smart, trusted retailer will “go to bat” for you and ensure some recourse from the manufacturer.
   3. If you can’t identify who makes the product, don’t buy it. Seriously, the only reason why a company does not reveal who they are is to make it difficult for you to obtain any sort of recourse when you’re not satisfied with their products.

In the world of fat burners, things are rarely as they seem. Remember that, and you’ll save yourself a world of heartache!

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