The Hoodia Scam

Guy Matthew' u20232@uwe said:

First off, I am not someone who needs to loose a lot of weight. I stumbled
upon your forums while looking for ways to just loose 20 pounds on my gut
before summer.

So forgive me for barging in🙂

However, I've been reading about Hoodia for some time now, because I'm
researching it as part of a 'scammer' marketing paper.

Even though some of you have pointed this out in a few posts, I've noticed
that it seems to go unnoticed. HOODIA is NOT on the MARKET!!! Whatever
they are selling all over the place...internet, TV, Radio...etc... IS NOT
THE REAL THING!

It will not be available in pill, or any other form for years, if at all.
Testing is still ongoing, and hasn't reached the marketting stage yet.

So Please! I know it must be frustrating to want to believe something so bad
that you'll almost pay anything for a "miracle" but try and refrain from
sending these scumbags any more of your hard earned cash.

If you are taking a pill that you thought was "hoodia cactus" stop. You have
no idea what is in it. It could be sawdust for all you know. Or worse.

I haven't been buying (or taking) any, but I've certainly seen the
advertisements. As far as I know it's a plant. What's to keep
someone from harvesting it and selling it? Is it that scarce? Have
you identified that they are selling some particular other product in
its place? In short, what is the =basis= for your claim that the item
being sold is "not the real thing"?

When selling agricultural products or food supplements there is very
little in the way of regulations on whatever concentration of some
supposed active ingredient might be, but there =are= some regulations
from a "truth in advertising" point of view about what the product
actually =is=. If you advertise it as a banana when it's really an
apple, you get in trouble without anyone worrying about the potassium
content.

Now, it may be that only a =specific variety= of Hoodia is supposed to
have those miracle properties and that they are selling a much more
common (and non-miracle) variety. That wouldn't run afoul of "truth
in advertising laws" as long as they weren't making the miracle
claims. It's up to the buyer in a situation like that to know what
product they want to buy. But selling sawdust (or anything else that
isn't really some sort of Hoodia), that gets them in legal hot water.

"Guy Matthew" <u20232@uwe> wrote in

Quoted message said:

If you are taking a pill that you thought was "hoodia cactus" stop. You
have
no idea what is in it. It could be sawdust for all you know. Or worse.

All diet gimmicks is Snake Oil!

DB said:

"Guy Matthew" <u20232@uwe> wrote in

Quoted message said:

If you are taking a pill that you thought was "hoodia cactus" stop. You
have
no idea what is in it. It could be sawdust for all you know. Or worse.

All diet gimmicks is Snake Oil!

I don't know if Guy is correct that all Hoodia being sold is fake. I
do know that a few years ago 60 Minutes did a story about it. The
plant grows in a very specific desert area of Africa which is under the
control of bushmen that have been using it for centuries to reduce
hunger. As I recall from the show, a major US drug company had
reached an agreement with the bushmen to lock up the supply for the
company to research and eventually turn into a commercial drug. So
apparently they believed there was some merit in it and that it was not
easy to just grow it somewhere else.

So, unlike most weight loss wonders, there is basis to believe this
stuff actually works. Now what companies are actually selling is an
interesting question. I've seen US websites and companies that clearly
claim what they are selling is from the real Hoodia grown by the
bushmen. If that's a lie, then they are open to fraud charges.

I too would be interested in what basis Guy has for his claim that all
what's being sold is fake.

Quoted message said:

I too would be interested in what basis Guy has for his claim that all
what's being sold is fake.

It would be a bit boring reading to paste my work here...even when its done,
since it involves a whole lot of "psycho babble" regarding other diet scams.

However, you can take a look at PHYTOPHARM's own website and get it from the
horses mouth.

Keep in mind that this is a very hard plant to grow, very expensive, and
minimal amounts are able to be extracted and isolated per plant. Thus tons of
plants are required for relitively small amounts of product.

Synthetic product has proven to be out of reach.

Also, this plant grows sparsely in one area of Africa, so it is being grown
exclusively under license with Phytopharm on experimental plantations.

Here is an excerpt from their currently updated Trials Info:

"The CSIR has submitted patents in territories all over the world relating to
Hoodia gordonii. Phytopharm has an exclusive licence for these patents."

"The necessary clinical trials and other studies to ensure the safety of the
extract will take a few years before a product will be available."

--
Message posted via WeightAdviser.com
http://www.weightadviser.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/diet-low-carb/200603/1

And THAT'S where the spam comes in. Slick, but transparent. Buh-bye
now Guy!

On 2 Apr 2006 00:00:00 -0800, "gweebles" <[email hidden]>
wrote:

|And THAT'S where the spam comes in. Slick, but transparent. Buh-bye
|now Guy!

It was obvious from the start. Posted from the WeightAdvisor forum.
Classic. My guess was that his hand puppet was going to come along and
say that ne, hew as wrong, there is in fact a website that sells the
real Hoodia at a reasonable price, yada yada yada

gweebles said:

And THAT'S where the spam comes in. Slick, but transparent. Buh-bye
now Guy!

what the hell is WRONG with you people! I try and post something factual
that might actually help someone from wasting their money, and you start this
[censored]?

What the hell have I tried to sell?!

Man! what a couple of idiots.

--
Message posted via WeightAdviser.com
http://www.weightadviser.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/diet-low-carb/200604/1

I cannot believe I am actually wasting my time responding, but GUY,
please don't underestimate our intelligence. You do a search on your
precious phytopharm site and it is all about buying THEIR brand of
Hoodia. In other words, you are a spammer and all of us know that
Hoodia needs to be taken in large quantities to work, if it works at
all. So like the rest of the idiots coming here trying to look
innocent but being a shill for their site that they get paid for "hits"
or sales, we know better. Again Buh-bye!!!

gweebles said:

I cannot believe I am actually wasting my time responding, but GUY,
please don't underestimate our intelligence. You do a search on your
precious phytopharm site and it is all about buying THEIR brand of
Hoodia. In other words, you are a spammer and all of us know that
Hoodia needs to be taken in large quantities to work, if it works at
all. So like the rest of the idiots coming here trying to look
innocent but being a shill for their site that they get paid for "hits"
or sales, we know better. Again Buh-bye!!!

In all fairness to Guy, what the hell are you talking about?
Phytopharm is not selling any Hoodia products to consumers.
Phytopharm is a legitimate pharmaceutical research company, with
partnerships with giants like Unilever and Pfizer, not some scam
internet sales company. As I understand it, they had a partnership
with Pfizer to develop a drug for weight control based on Hoodia. When
it became obvious that the chemical compount could not be easily
synthesized, Pfizer lost interest in it. Phytopharm is apparently
continuing on, with the intent of making it into a legitimate
commercial product at some point in the future. In other words, they
have nothing to sell to any consumers.

You seem to know a LOT about
phytopharm.................................hmmmmmmmmm is your name Guy
too?

gweebles said:

You seem to know a LOT about
phytopharm.................................hmmmmmmmmm is your name Guy
too?

No, I just take a few minutes to figure out what's going on instead of
making an ass of myself.

gweebles said:

You seem to know a LOT about
phytopharm.................................hmmmmmmmmm is your name Guy
too?

Well, I just got home and checked here out of curiosity. I can't believe I
started this thread at all, and regret it completely.
I'm not into "yelling" on line, but essentially you've called me a lier and I
had to post that response calling you idiots. I really can't understand how
that happened, but oh well....

Anyway, I have better things I should be doing, but I'll just state that I
used my real name, (first and middle) as opposed some weird "handle", and am
a graduate student of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester,
Massachusetts.

The reason I stopped by here, as stated in my initial post was to warn
possibly gullible folks about a wide spread scam that I became aware of while
researching weight loss and related psychological problems associated with
obesity. I had no intention of getting into arguments.

As the above poster stated, I only brought up that website so that you could
see for yourselves that there are NO products with this ingredient yet on the
open market.

So, bye, bye yourself

--
Message posted via WeightAdviser.com
http://www.weightadviser.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/diet-low-carb/200604/1

LIAR --- not "lier", which might be someone sleeping horizontally.

Graduate students, I was one of those a couple of times.

Thank you for the posting to be wary of internet sellers of wizard type
diet products, and Hoodia especially.

Guy Matthew via WeightAdviser.com said:

gweebles said:

You seem to know a LOT about
phytopharm.................................hmmmmmmmmm is your name Guy
too?

Well, I just got home and checked here out of curiosity. I can't believe I
started this thread at all, and regret it completely.
I'm not into "yelling" on line, but essentially you've called me a lier and I
had to post that response calling you idiots. I really can't understand how
that happened, but oh well....

Anyway, I have better things I should be doing, but I'll just state that I
used my real name, (first and middle) as opposed some weird "handle", and am
a graduate student of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester,
Massachusetts.

The reason I stopped by here, as stated in my initial post was to warn
possibly gullible folks about a wide spread scam that I became aware of while
researching weight loss and related psychological problems associated with
obesity. I had no intention of getting into arguments.

As the above poster stated, I only brought up that website so that you could
see for yourselves that there are NO products with this ingredient yet on the
open market.

So, bye, bye yourself

--
1) Eat Till SATISFIED, Not STUFFED... Atkins repeated 9 times in the book
2) Exercise: It's Non-Negotiable..... Chapter 22 title, Atkins book
3) Don't Diet Without Supplemental Nutrients... Chapter 23 title, Atkins
book
4) A sensible eating plan, and follow it. (Atkins, Self Made or Other)

Before the big publicity splash with Ephedra a couple of years
ago, I 'd never heard of Hoodia. I take it Hoodia is an herb
that does about the same sort of thing as Ephedra? If so then
wait a few years and it will get its own publictiy splash.

Hoodia is another one of those so called "miracle" herbs that sellers
guarantee you'll lose 60 pounds a month without changing the way you
eat and don't exercise. Then the little writing says "results not
typical" which means it doesn't work. So yes, it will and is getting a
lot of hype.

gweebles said:

Hoodia is another one of those so called "miracle" herbs that sellers
guarantee you'll lose 60 pounds a month without changing the way you
eat and don't exercise. Then the little writing says "results not
typical" which means it doesn't work. So yes, it will and is getting a
lot of hype.

You've already demonstrated that you know less than nothing about the
history of Hoodia, yet you continue to spout off and make more of an
ass of yourself. Unlike most other "miracle herbs", real drug
companies like Pfizer and Phytopharm have invested millions in
investigating the potential of Hoodia. Many of the most successful
drugs in history have been originally isolated from plants.

And as Guy pointed out, if there is a scam going on, it's companies
selling phoney Hoodia, not the real product, which is just in the early
development stages.

Oh, you mean you are still sore over this? Hmmm...I lost interest in
this thread last week.. Get over it. If Hoodia really worked, it
would only be available by prescription. Anyhoo... you notice how so
few actually post here anymore? It is because of [censored] like you.
Toodles!

gweebles said:

Oh, you mean you are still sore over this? Hmmm...I lost interest in
this thread last week.. Get over it. If Hoodia really worked, it
would only be available by prescription. Anyhoo... you notice how so
few actually post here anymore? It is because of [censored] like you.
Toodles!

You continue to shoot your mouth off, without knowing a damn thing
about what you're talking about. You started by accusing Guy of trying
to promote Hoodia from Phytopharm by spamming, which shows your total
ignorance of the entire subject and your laziness to even try to figure
it out. The simple fact is Phytopharm is a legitimate drug research
company with no Hoodia to sell to consumers period. Yet, you persist
in making an ass of yourself.

As for Hoodia being available by prescription, that is exactly what
Pfizer and Phytopharm were interested in and why they are not selling
anything yet. Phytopharm is continuing research, testing and
operations to grow the plant, which takes time. Apparently you think
drugs just show up in a bottle out of thin air. Many drugs, aspirin,
digitalis, taxol, just to name a few, originated from plant
discoveries.

As to who posts here, I've been here for years and don't recall you
showing up until recently. I'm sure I would have noticed you, as your
ignorance is quite obvious. I'll still be here long after your feeble
brain moves on to some new topic.

Actually I have been here since 2001, research, stupid. You brag about
researching, look up my name and you'll see I was a daily poster here
until people like you kept dragging mundane things on and on and on and
on and on. You must really have some emotional issues to keep this up.
I don't post much here anymore because there are so few left and there
are only like 10 posts a day when there were hundreds then. It gets
boring. So unless you have something else to spaz out about I will now
killfile you so I don't have to listen to you anymore. As to the rest
stuck with readint this, I apologize for making this thread look
interesting when it isn't.