Online Pharmacy Reviews

How to buy medicines safely and cheaply online

How to spot a fake or scam online pharmacy

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How to spot a fake or scam online pharmacy

There is no easy way to spot a fake or scam online pharmacy. The idea behind these pharmacies more often than not is to completely blend in, to look like a completely legitimate online pharmacy. Not only do they look like regular online pharmacies, but sometimes more sophisticated pharmacies go to lengths to create fake user reviews and highly-controlled forums, promoting their own scam pharmacies and deleting the rest.

One good way to check whether an online pharmacy is legitimate, is to check one thing they cannot fake: genuine customer satisfaction. To check real customer reviews and feedback, a neutral website is needed. One of such websites is Pharmacy Reviewer, which offers a big, open forum and a blacklist section and is completely open about where it receives its revenue to pay for moderators, server and administration.

The blacklist reviews section of Pharmacy Reviewer can be found here: Pharmacy Reviewer Blacklist Section
It features reviews on some of the most popular scam/fake online pharmacies. However, it is not possible to cover all of them, as many of them are constantly shifting and changing their domains and covering their tracks.
However, there are common patterns to the sites blacklisted there:

• Unrealistic pricing. When the price is several times lower than on other online pharmacies, it could be because their medicines are fake or they do not actually provide the medicines they offer.
• Fishy customer support. While not necessarily a deal breaker, not responding, bad English skills, making excuses and not providing concrete information are often bad signs.
• Offering penis enlargement pills or similar doubtful solutions is a sign of a pharmacy that is not to be taken seriously.

Payment advice when purchasing from online pharmacies

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While buying from domestic online pharmacies is relatively safe, when it comes to buying prescription drugs from other countries, there are particular risks involved. The goods could not arrive, or your credit card information could be stolen: fraudulent credit card charges after purchasing medicines online is not that rare of a case. For example the pharmacy Golden Pharma 25 has been known to steal its customer’s personal information and uses it for fraudulent purchases online, as discussed on the Pharmacy Reviewer Forum

One way to avoid this problem could appear to be money transfer businesses, such as PayPal. However, PayPal in particular does not allow buying medicines through their service, so this popular alternative is not very likely to be used by reputable pharmacies either.

One way to lower the risks when buying online is to use pre-paid credit cards. Using them can avoid givign out extra personal information. But the real advantage is that these credit cards can be loaded with just the right amount of money for the planned transaction. This way after the payment is processed, there is no more money that can be withdrawn from your bank account and since it is not an actual credit card, there will be no debt accumulation there either.

A-fistful-of-dollars

Pre-paid cards can be bought from Walmart or other common vendors. There is a good discussion on different prepaid cards and their use on Best Prepaid Visa Card That Doesn’t Require Personal Information

 

Prepaid cards before loading them with money usually cost only 3$ and there is a 2% international transaction fee, which is pretty standard, so when having doubts about the safety of an internet pharmacy, it is usually better to be on the safe side and use a card that will prevent additional financial losses even if the shipment will fail to arrive or some other problem arises.

 

Scams of fraudsters connected to rogue online pharmacies

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When rogue online pharmacies decide they need more victims or more revenue, sometimes they turn to some really outrageous tactics.
For example, there are certain online pharmacies, who after providing the medicine (usually prescription medicine) calls their customers, taking up the identities of special service agents and using fear tactics extract even more money from their victims. ABC news had a Nightline program reporting about this issue:

And there is an ongoing discussion about this on the Pharmacy Reviewer forum:
Pharmacy Reviewer: DEA Agent Impersonator Calls

However, long story short: DEA agents never call and warn about searching your apartments or demand anything from you. This is unlawful as there is no way you can identify an agent through the telephone.

Another trick fraudsters use to extort money after an order has been made (and paid for) is to email asking for more money. Usually the fraudsters’ excuse is an unavoidable price change, a better deal (buy more for just a little bonus), or a failure to receive money (which is almost always a lie). Customers often pay up, because they are afraid they will not receive their shipments otherwise. However most often this scam tactic is simply an attempt to extort even more money from their victims, because they will probably not follow through with the order even with additional money spent.
FDA Certificate used by a fake online pharmacy
The last, common trick when dealing with overseas online pharmacies, is their refusal to accept any payment options other than Western Union. Western Union basically allows the fraudsters to completely vanish with your money. After someone in an overseas country takes your money, they have no tracks they should cover, so maximum care should be taken with online pharmacies with WU as their sole payment option. There is an example on the PR Forum of a man who was scammed out of $900 by paying through Western Union, showing the risks of using Western Union.

The Maine personal importation law and how this could affect the future legal situation for users of online pharmacies in the United States

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The motto of the State of Maine, “Dirigo”, or “I guide/lead” seems to be prophetic in the way the state might lead the whole country to change its drug importation law.

Several years ago, the idea of importing prescription drugs from other countries was heavily debated, but any actual attempts to legalize it were thwarted by the FDA because of the supposed risk of citizens ending up with counterfeit medicines.
Over the past year, however, against a backdrop of extortionate medicine costs, the State of Maine enacted a law that allowed its residents to legally obtain prescription drugs from internet pharmacies in the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, the State’s close neighbor.
As feared by the pharmaceutical industry, this law in the State of Maine has set a precedent for something larger than itself. In December 13, 2013, a bill called Personal Drug Importation Fairness Act was proposed. The bill would allow American citizens “to buy prescription drugs from countries with a comparable safety standard the US or better, including Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, South Africa, and countries in the European Union”. A purchase must be accompanied by a valid prescription for a supply not exceeding 90 days and must be dispensed by a licensed pharmacist. The prescription drug must have the same active ingredients, route of administration, and strength as an FDA-approved prescription drug.” (Personal Drug Importation Fairness Act)
Whether the bill passes or becomes a template for individual states to follow, will remain to be seen, but with the current high prices of prescription drugs and many dissatisfied citizens who pay the highest prices for drugs compared to any other country in the world, some kind of change is very likely to come.

Will the lower prices come with a risk of counterfeit drugs? Perhaps the state should create a list of reliable foreign pharmacies or some kind of authentication scheme? Please share your opinions on Pharmacy Reviewer: Maine to Allow Prescription-Drug Imports

What are the legal risks of using online pharmacies?

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First of all, it should be said, that buying drugs that are NOT in the controlled substances list of the Drug Enforcement Administration ( Controlled Substances ) and from a valid online pharmacy is normally legal. The question of legality comes when controlled substances are put on the table.

 

As I have mentioned in my previous posts, the serious regulation of online pharmacies mainly started in 2009, when The Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act was passed.

A quick reminder of what the act implies:

* The Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act requires internet pharmacies to display information about the businesses, pharmacists and physicians associated with the website.
* The Act prohibits the sale of prescription drugs through online pharmacies when the website refers the customer to a doctor who then prescribes medication without seeing the patient. This effectively outlaws telemedicine where scheduled medicines are involved.
* Finally, the Act provides the states with a new enforcement authority that allows the attorney general to shut down any site which violates the law.

 

The above basically means that any online pharmacy which sells controlled drugs without requiring a prescription, without publishing verifiable contact information is a rogue pharmacy and buying medicine from them is considered illegal.

However, while it is illegal (and there is a risk of scam as well) to buy controlled substances without a prescription, it does not necessarily mean that the customer who got caught purchasing a controlled substance would have to face penalties (which in theory can be up to $250.000 and 5 years in prison).

The Food and Drugs Administration itself have stated that they allow certain shipments if they decide they are not harmful or meant for distribution:
“FDA personnel may use their discretion to allow entry of shipments of violative FDA regulated products when the quantity and purpose are clearly for personal use, and the product does not present an unreasonable risk to the user. Even though all products that appear to be in violation of statutes administered by FDA are subject to refusal, FDA personnel may use their discretion to examine the background, risk, and purpose of the product before making a final decision. Although FDA may use discretion to allow admission of certain violative items, this should not be interpreted as a license to individuals to bring in such shipments.”

 

That said, the risk of legal action taken against the buyer is still there. Buying really small orders would probably be on the safer side.
For more information about legality of buying medicines online, I would like to recommend this forum thread here: Pharmacy Reviewer Legality of Ordering From Online Pharmacies FAQ, inlcuding ordering from a no prescription required online pharmacy.

What are the most common tricks which scam online pharmacy websites use?

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There are many scammers, people who sell untested pills from China, identity thieves and other kinds of crooks who specialize in scamming people through online pharmacies and they can get really creative and manipulative. Here is a list of some of the most common techniques employed by these people, together with examples:

Occasional Scammer – These pharmacies seemingly randomly fail to provide medicines. They often try to justify themselves by directly talking to their victims and trying to explain about their supply issues or lie about actually sending the medicine. The problem with these pharmacies is that as long as they don’t have a terrible failure rate, people still order from them.

Selective Scammer – Similarly to the Occasional Scammer pharmacies, this type often happens with email pharmacies. They usually have a limited supply of drugs so at some point they stop sending drugs to new customers or simply begin to take money and not send medicines to their selected older customers whom they deem to be least useful. Again, similarly to the Occasional Scammer, this may lead to the pharmacy having both a fan base and a hater base. This is of course an unacceptable scam tactic. Pharmacy Reviewer’s Blacklist keeps track of scam pharmacies.

Clone/Mirror Website – A scam pharmacy imitating a legitimate pharmacy through design and content. They simply take the money and disappear. Sometimes with the whole website, which was only ever set up to be temporary.

Fake Website – Similarly to the Clone/Mirror website, this pharmacy possibly doesn’t even exist. It only has a website which is used to lure people to spend money on medicines that they will never receive. Look up about the Unimedstore scam described on Pharmacy Reviewer for more info.

Fake Pill Seller – These scammers will send fake pills. The pills can be either placebo pills without any effect or worse – a drug that is not the ordered one.

Credit Card Fraud – These online pharmacies may send the ordered medicines, but they will also buy themselves expensive commodities with the Credit Card details, such as wine in Italy or computers in Pakistan, as was the case with this pharmacy: United Pharmacies was added to the Pharmacy Reviewer Blacklist recently due to repeated credit card fraud.

Hackers – There are online pharmacies who may or may not actually send medicines or steal money, but they sure will try to use all the personal information they know about you to try and hack your email or PayPal account passwords. Most often these crooks also misuse the Credit Card information they received.

Random Drug Sellers – Receiving shipments from these websites is highly unpredictable. These pharmacies either produce drugs themselves or have unreliable sources or whatever other problems, but they don’t always send the drugs that were ordered. This is of course of great risk to health, as the purchaser may overdose, suffer without their intended medicines or experience unnecessary drug effects.

Scam Forums – These forums are created for a sole purpose of advertising their own fake pharmacies or pharmacies who pay for the advertisements and positive posts/reviews. Negative posts about these pharmacies are instantly deleted.
There are several example of fake pharmacy forums discussed on Pharmacy Reviewer.

It may also be useful to note that there are many websites who employ several of the mentioned scam tactics at the same time. For example a clone/mirror pharmacy may take your money, send fake drugs and then fraudulently use your credit card. Great caution is advised when dealing with risky online pharmacies. Make sure to read other people’s feedback before a decision is made.

The risks of using PayPal with online pharmacies

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While using PayPal with online pharmacies may seem like a good idea, there are many risks attached. First and foremost, buying controlled, prescription-only drugs is against PayPal’s policy of acceptable use which states that PayPal cannot be used for purchases of any prescription drugs:
PayPal Acceptable Use
So basically even if all you need is something as harmless as Viagra, it will most probably be off-limits through PayPal legally.
While not recommended, if you would still like to try buying from online pharmacies through PayPal, here are the risks you should be aware of:

PayPal might close your account and freeze your funds for good. PayPal are known to act in a way which is almost tantamount to stealing people’s money when they discover that someone has been buying medicines through the web using their payment service: they will freeze the funds for months and close your account. If determined to use PayPal or wanting extra privacy, it is apparently possible to use PayPal anonymously (search on Google for how-to guides), although the process of setting up an anonymous PayPal account is not quick or easy.

Another mild risk when using PayPal is security. Buying from online pharmacies usually includes giving some ammount of personal information to the pharmacy. Email is usually required, so there‘s a risk it can be used to hack your PayPal account (provided it is the same email). There‘s a first-hand experience at Pharmacy Reviewer forum of someone whos PayPal account was hack attempted: PayPal Alertpay hack attempt and while I do not consider this a serious attempt, it is still something to be considered.

The last two remaining risks are probably the worst ones. There are a handful of accounts scattered around the web of people who had law enforcement officers show up at their door after purchasing medicines through PayPal. However it is not clear that this is a big risk when buying small quantities of medicines which are not highly controlled.
The final risk is of course that the online pharmacy might take your money and refuse to provide anything. For obvious reasons complaining to PayPal might not work in such cases, although it would probably result in the online pharmacy’s PayPal account being closed (but yours too).

For those who are still dedicated to use PayPal with online pharmacies, here is a link to a thread containing success stories at Pharmacy Reviewer forum:
Do any iops use paypal

Upcoming changes in the legal status of tramadol and how this will affect online pharmacies

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Tramadol pills -- soon to be made a controlled, scheduled substance in the US and UK

Tramadol pills: soon to become very difficult to buy online

Unlike many other opioid analgesics, the popular painkiller tramadol is not scheduled as a controlled substance at the moment by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. However, that looks set to change. Tramdaol might face reclassification this year, when it might be added to the list of schedule IV drugs, according to a DEA statement released in November 2013: http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/fed_regs/rules/2013/fr1104.htm This might go into effect by June 2014. The DEA appears to be planning to follow the pattern set by several states where tramadol is currently controlled. Arkansas, Tennessee, Illinois, New Mexico, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Wyoming, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and the US military also classify Tramadol as a schedule IV controlled substance.

That means that Tramadol will no longer be widely available online at US-based sites like http://www.RxMegastore.com, or over the counter in the US and UK without a prescription. It might still be available online at international online pharmacies such as http://www.ehealthrx.com, but importing a controlled susbstance without a valid prescription would be illegal so buying tramadol in this way would be risky.

The trend to put tighter controls on Tramadol has been gathering pace for some years now in other countries and it appears to be reaching the tipping point in the USA (and the UK) right now where it will soon be much harder to get.
The change is definitely bad news for many genuine pain sufferers who cannot afford insurance, but need the medicine nevertheless. However, the only solution is ordering Tramadol in higher amounts while it is available.

Change in status of Tramadol is not being done just to upset people. In 2012, in the UK, in England and Wales alone, there were 175 deaths involving Tramadol, although not necessarily as the main cause. (see the link to the discussion on PR’s forum below.) Statistics show that the number of deaths involving Tramadol is on the rise. There are also many other reasons why Tramadol is not a medicine to be taken lightly – it is addictive with withdrawal symptoms possible, it also potentially affects digestion, like any opioid painkiller, and can induce drowsiness.
Genuine pain-sufferers who seriously need to continue using Tramadol might want to look into buying higher amounts of bulk Tramadol before it is too late. There have been shortages of Tramadol in 2013, too, so every day counts for those wanting to buy it.
There has been an interesting discussion on reclassification of Tramadol on the Pharmacy Reviewer forum:
Pharmacy Reviewer (UK – Tramadol faces reclassification after surge in deaths).

Why is it impossible to buy strong painkillers online these days?

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Oxycodone -- very difficult to buy online

Oxycodone — very difficult to buy online

For years now it has been increasingly difficult to buy strong painkillers online. The influence of the FDA and DEA on the web is only getting stronger, and means that, with the FDA’s increasingly aggressive stance in particular, previously available medicines are being reclassified as prescription only, for example even the relatively mild opioid painkiller tramadol.
The Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008 is the key US legislation to enforce restrictive measures against online pharmacies.
The full read of the Ryan Haight Act can be read here:
Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008

* Since 2009, The Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act requires internet pharmacies to display information about the businesses, pharmacists and physicians associated with the website.
* The Act prohibits the sale of prescription drugs through online pharmacies when the website refers the customer to a doctor who then prescribes medication without seeing the patient. This effectively outlaws telemedicine where scheduled medicines are involved.
* Finally, the Act provides the states with a new enforcement authority that allows the attorney general to shut down any site which violates the law.

The effect of the Ryan Haight act today is that is nearly impossible to procure strong painkillers online, as they are all prescription only. A discussion on how was the situation with online pharmacies before the Act can be read on Pharmacy Reviewer forum here:
Pharmacy Reviewer (Buying drugs back in the day)
As of now, the only two options are 1) unreliable or even dangerous email dealers possibly linked to drug cartels in Mexico. 2) So-called “dark web” marketplaces such as the various successor marketplaces to the recently closed Silk Road on the Tor network. Ordering from sources like these could lead to money loss, or even arrest, so this path is not recommended.

The FDA and DEA have effectively achieved their objective of making it almost impossible to buy strong painkillers online and making the most viable route obtaining Rx through face-to-face contact with qualified medical personnel.