TikTok may be the perfect crucible in which to exploit the frailties of negative body image and then breed scammers who con millions from people looking to obtain drugs for weight-loss. According to a report released today by Digital Citizens Alliance (DCA), a joint investigation with the Coalition for a Safer Web found at least sixty operators, several posing as pharmacies or medical professionals, fraudulently offering to ship the antidiabetic drugs Ozempic or Mounjaro or the weight-loss drug Wegovy.
“The moment is tailor-made for scammers to take advantage of American consumers,” says DCA executive director Tom Galvin in its press release. “An estimated one in six people say they take Ozempic or other weight loss drugs and just as many are considering it. That’s a target-rich environment for criminals and other bad actors. It’s alarming that TikTok allows these scammers to operate so freely.”
Big Tech critic Tristan Harris has compared the Chinese version of TikTok to “spinach” and the version used by the rest of the world to “opium” because the safeguards deployed on the former do not exist on the latter. Harris did not literally mean drug pushing with that analogy and was instead referring to the addictive nature of the platform. But it is little surprise that the TikTok algorithm is used to detect users’ interest in weight loss and then bombard them with promises to deliver name-brand drugs without a prescription.
DCA Report Lays Out the Anatomy of the Scam
First, there’s the offer of a month’s supply, usually for about $200-$400. Next the seller insists upon using cryptocurrency or payment apps like Venmo, Zelle, or PayPal and to process transactions as “friends and family” to circumvent refund mechanisms. In some instances, the scammer will inform the customer of a “holdup in customs,” which can be expedited by a one-time payment. And finally, the customer is asked for a screenshot as proof of payment, which then provides the scammer with information that can be used to directly trigger fraudulent transactions. As the report states:
A day after making a payment to these scammers, one of the investigator’s credit cards was compromised. Nearly $2,600 was charged to Hertz Rental Car. In addition, the investigator received a Zelle fraud alert within hours of a purchase.
Naturally, these pharma-cons move around the platform by creating and shedding multiple accounts and identities to evade what little scrutiny TikTok employs to crack down on these activities. This is, of course, familiar territory. In 2011, Google paid a half-billion-dollar fine to the DOJ for ad revenues it received from rogue pharmacies in Canada. In that case, for better or worse, the pharmacies and drugs were often real, but the transactions were illegal. In the TikTok examples, with so many red flag indicators of a scam, one might think that few consumers would fall for these “offers,” but perhaps the intent to misuse a diabetes drug in the first place (a potentially fatal decision) indicates a willful blindness that is every con artist’s dream. The DCA report states:
It can be said that it’s better for Americans to be duped out of their money than to receive drugs – whether Ozempic, opioids, or steroids – that can threaten their health or even their life. But it’s a sad commentary when the “lesser of two evils” is the choice offered to American consumers.
Regardless of consumer awareness, this new report is yet another example of the failed policy of laissez faire when it comes to social media platforms. If the forced sale of TikTok wrests control of the platform from the Chinese Communist Party, that will bring the new owner into the reach of U.S. law, but what U.S. lawmakers then do to protect American citizens is another matter.
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