How To Protect Yourself From Online Pharmacy Scams

There are thousands upon thousands of online pharmacies to choose from online making it increasingly more difficult to find an option that you are sure is safe to use both in terms of your health and also your wallet. In this article, we are going to be outlining key steps on how to protect yourself from online pharmacy scams.

Don’t Give Away Your Personal Details

You need to be very careful with your personal details because they can be used by criminals to commit various types of fraud that will ultimately cause financial loss as well as the need to spend a lot of time sorting everything out. Usually, personal information is used to open credit cards or take out loans.

Alternatively, other forms of personal information such as your phone number or email address can be bombarded by spam emails or calls if you sign up to a newsletter on a small site with little traction and online presence then you are risking having your information exploited. It has also been reported in the news that scammers tend to work together and share the contact details of their victims meaning that you will likely be bombarded by spam emails from multiple criminals rather than the original individual that stole your information.

Check If They Are Regulated

In the majority of countries around the world, there are government-approved pharmaceutical regulatory agencies that are either private charities or public companies. These regulatory agencies make sure that all approved pharmacies follow the required regulations that ensure the rights and safety of its customers.

It is common for scam online drugstores on the internet to simply add the logo of reputable regulatory agencies to try and convince users that they are approved regulated members when that is not actually the reality. Therefore you should not simply trust what you see but you should verify this information by going on the official websites of those agencies. On many of those websites, there will also be the ability to post online pharmacy reviews to get a better idea of the number of customer complaints connected to the pharmaceutical website that you are investigating before using.

Furthermore, it is good to know, that most of the official badges from regulatory bodies will include a hyperlink that will take you to the official regulatory site when clicked on. If it is just an image then it is a much higher chance that it is not legit.

Avoid High-Risk Countries

Most of the online scam websites are located in a small number of countries, this is due to a variety of factors such as lack of interest in such illegal activities from the native law enforcement agencies and higher privacy allowing for the individuals involved to stay under the radar.

Pharmacy websites that are not involved in legal activities tend to present themselves as being located in countries with high regulation such as the United States and Canada while actually being based in other countries.

Use Safe Payment Methods

The way that you pay online is arguably one of the most important steps that you need to be aware of and work on in order to make sure that you are protected online. 

Does Not Ask for Prescription

One of the biggest giveaways that you are not dealing with an online pharmaceutical site that is safe to use is that they do not want a prescription from you for medication that will usually require a prescription. This is because fraudulent sites are trying to make it as easy as possible for their victims to send them money, so it is not in their interest to ask for a prescription as a lot of people may not have one.

No Verifiable Physical Address

It is much easier to commit fraud using virtual drugstores than brick and mortar drugstores as you are able to present an air of professionalism much more easily and also the set up is very low cost which is why there are so many scam pharmacies online. Regardless if it’s a physical or online store, it will still require a physical business address in order to receive mail and other forms of correspondence.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are many online pharmacy scams out there trying to fool you into giving them money for medication that will be dangerous for you to consume if you happen to receive anything at all. In order to stay safe, you should make use of all of the points that we have made in this article including using anti-virus software, checking out the online pharmacy reviews, doing research on the website and their claims, and using only payment methods that are safe.

Buy from Legit Pharmacies Online – Buying medicine from any non-reviewed source can be risky. Rogue online pharmacies offer potentially dangerous prescription drugs consumers. For this reason, DrugStore Adviser have created their own list of drugstores that meet legal requirements and have nice pricing.