Thursday, May 14, 2009

 

 

Scams are an unfortunate part of any unregulated industry, but when you have the kind of demand that Hoodia Gordonii has and the kind of press coverage it has enjoyed in the last five years, the risk becomes almost overwhelming to the point of causing danger to these companies’ consumers. As one of those potential consumers, you owe it to yourself to be educated in what kinds of scams are being proliferated and what you can do to avoid them.

 

 

The CITES Certification Process.

 

First, you should know a little about how Hoodia Gordonii is harvested and distributed. Recently, due to increased demand for the supplement, the United Nations’ CITES program which protects endangered wildlife and plant life, was applied to the plant. This means that without proper certification through CITES, no Hoodia Gordonii product can legally be sold or exported from South Africa for use in North American or European supplements. Certification involves making sure that a sample is tested for purity, the amount of the product is not oversold, and that too much Hoodia Gordonii is not misused.

 

 

Faking CITES Certification.

 

The first scam then is the faking of these CITES certificates. Whether it is by the companies producing the products or by the companies supposedly producing the Hoodia Gordonii, there is an epidemic of falsified CITES certifications and due to poor regulation, they are rarely caught, despite strict laws that every Hoodia Gordonii company display their certification for consumers to see and that it is an exact copy of what is on file with the CITES commission. In addition to counterfeiting CITES certificates, there are companies out there who are actively falsifying lab reports or paying off less than reputable labs to give them reports they need to continue selling bad Hoodia.

 

 

Counterfeit Hoodia.

 

The first real risk that comes from falsified CITES certificates and lab reports is that the Hoodia Gordonii itself is counterfeit. The product could contain only a percentage of actual Hoodia, less than the 100% guaranteed, or it could be that Hoodia is replaced with the Chinese strain of the plant that contains no P57 and thus does not work.

 

 

Using Fillers.

 

Beyond simply using fake Hoodia Gordonii, many companies are loading their products with fillers and false products that don’t actually work. In addition to being a waste of money (quite a bit of it), these products can be dangerous as they are filled with everything from random grasses and plants from South Africa to a host of chemical fillers that can cause people to become sick. Forget not losing weight for a second – these products can actually hurt your body. You might find everything from twigs and sawdust in these false products and very little if any actual Hoodia Gordonii.

 

 

The Lab Tests

 

So, how is it that not just one, but dozens of companies can easily dupe the import regulators and CITES oversight commission of the United Nations so easily? It’s not easy, but when that much money’s at stake, the hucksters and scam artists out there do what it takes. They will bait and switch their products, sending in a pure sample of Hoodia Gordonii for testing so that their certifications are all legitimate but their products are anything but.

Of course, the independent testing doesn’t lie and when real labs without any cash lined pockets look inside some of these pills they find that there are often no Hoodia Gordonii ingredients whatsoever. The bait and switch tactic only works on those consumers who don’t pay much attention. Tests such as Advanced Microscopy tests, Thin-Layer Chromatography, and High Performance Liquid Chromatography – which look at the resonance of each chemical in the substance being tested to see exactly what is present – can sniff out and lay clean for everyone to see what kinds of fake products are in a counterfeit Hoodia Gordonii supplement.

 

 

Lying to Customers.

 

The final scam and probably the easiest to perpetrate, is the one in which these companies flat out lie to their customers. Things like the 20:1 ratio which companies try to tell you mean they have loaded extra Hoodia into their pills are downright misleading. What this truthfully means is that when Hoodia Gordonii is dried for use in supplements the ratio of raw to dried product is 20:1. All pure Hoodia Gordonii products use this ratio because that’s how Hoodia Gordonii dries.

 

 

 

Another common deception is to make false comparison charts that tell consumers they are getting a “better” product than the competitors when almost all of the statistics on said charts are dishonest. Watch out for comparison charts made by companies producing Hoodia. I have made my own chart where I compare the leading products based on the ingredients listed on their containers and the tests I have personally conducted. Out of the hundreds of products out there, the idea is to find those who were showing C.I.T.E.S. certificates, who were using pure real Hoodia Gordonii from south Africa, who were using as much Hoodia as possible, who were not adding other ingredients and possibly not using Magnesium Stearate or stearic acids. Trying to combine all these selection criteria shortens the list to only 4 products with only one winner: Hoodia Prime. Check the Video here.