People Who Prey On The Vulnerable Are Dangerous

To live with pain or illness every day can become wearying, depressing and often frightening. Everyone who lives like this wishes for one thing – to feel better. We might feel so desperate that when the chance of a cure comes along, we want to reach out and grasp it with both hands. Who wouldn’t? But sadly, most so-called cures aren’t cures at all. They’re snake oil being sold by scandalous people who prey on vulnerable members of society.

These people have no conscience. They are criminals. Sick, ruthless criminals.

People Who Prey on the Vulnerable See a Career Opportunity

The internet is amazing. It’s especially helpful for people who live with health conditions because there are some excellent websites that contain useful information. People, often bloggers like myself, share their experiences in the hope of helping other sufferers.

However, the online health and wellness industry isn’t all good. Some people and websites make false claims about illnesses and make suggestions which could be harmful rather than helpful. And, of course, they try to sell pills and potions to cure our ills.

They are cruel and dangerous. They simply see vulnerable members of society as a lucrative career opportunity.

Meet Belle Gibson – A Wellness Guru to Avoid

An Australian woman, a self-proclaimed wellness guru, named Belle Gibson was an Instagram influencer with over 300,000 followers. In 2014, Belle claimed that she’d been given a cancer diagnosis with only four months to live . But she had miraculously cured herself through dietary changes and alternative therapies. She didn’t use any conventional treatments, therefore down to her own hard work, she was now cancer-free.

Her followers believed every word.

But every word was a lie.

She was telling a very sick lie and as her followers grew, her lies grew.

Belle was promoting her lifestyle to other cancer sufferers. She sold an app called The Whole Pantry to help other people make the same life choices. When the app was first released, it was downloaded over 200,000 times in the first month. She then published a cookery book to accompany the app. By 2015, sales of the app and book had exceeded $1,000,000 and Belle was living a very luxurious life.

Eventually, her lies unravelled when she failed to make a promised $300,000 donation to a charity.

Wellness Gurus Are Sometimes Bad For Your Health

Some people had abandoned their conventional treatments for their illnesses and had followed her suggestions instead. They didn’t get healthier. They became more ill. People might even have died because of her.

From WiKi
While The Whole Pantry has unequivocally denied that Gibson ever helped anyone to reject conventional cancer treatment, Gibson has been quoted from her social media posts as claiming that she had “countless times helped others” to forgo conventional medical treatment for cancer and to treat themselves “naturally”, as well as “leading them down natural therapy for everything from fertility, depression, bone damage and other types of cancer”

You can read more about Belle Gibson here and watch a BBC documentary about her here.

(Incidentally, while researching this, I read that she is still trying to scam people.)

There Are Many Unscrupulous People Who Prey on the Vulnerable

Unfortunately, Belle Gibson is just one of many con-artists in the health and wellness industry. There are many other unscrupulous people out there who view people with health conditions as targets.

People with terminal or chronic illnesses or chronic pain are often desperate. They can’t take their life full of pain or illness and might be willing to try anything. Those con-artists know that.

They Have a Sales-Pitch to Target People With Health Conditions

Lies come easily to many of them. They often join support groups and awareness pages claiming to have the same condition so that they blend in with the other members. Then they bring on their sales pitch…

When I first started the End Trigeminal Neuralgia awareness page and support group, someone posted about a miracle cure. She said, “You have to try this supplement because it has cured all my friends’ trigeminal neuralgia.” I asked how many friends she had who suffer from trigeminal neuralgia. Her answer was, “Everyone in my class at high school had it. Everyone. But now they’re cured.”

Bear in mind that trigeminal neuralgia is extremely difficult to treat and it doesn’t have a cure. And it is classed as rare, especially amongst younger people. But her high school class had a room full of students suffering from it!

I told her she was talking nonsense and I banned her from my group. I was so angry that someone would try to take advantage of people with such a horrible condition. She eventually admitted to me that she was trying to sell the supplement. But she also told me that she and her colleagues had made up all of the glowing reviews on the company website.

I Hate People Who Prey on the Vulnerable

Hate is a very strong word, but I will use it in this instance because people who prey on the vulnerable are scum.

Those cures on offer aren’t real. They’re fake snake oil cures. On many website, reviews aren’t real either.

It’s cruel enough that people have to live with chronic pain or chronic illness, but it seems even more cruel that there are some nasty lowlifes out there who want to take advantage of them.

Avoid the Scammers Who Prey on the Vulnerable

I’m not trying to suggest that nobody can be trusted but always remember that some people do make false claims. They do not care about you or your pain or illness. They have one interest – making money.

If you are desperate for a cure or even just a remedy to make life better think carefully before buying products which call themselves cures. Don’t believe everything you read. If something sounds too good to be true, very often, it is.

The “Cure” or Advice Could Be Dangerous

How do you know if the miracle cure or advice they’re giving is safe? Do you know exactly what is in the supplement? Does it have a full ingredient list? It should. Have genuine medical scientists and government organizations in your country checked the safety and legitimacy of it?

Are there any interactions with other medication you use and is it safe to take with a health condition you have? Always check this – even natural products can cause interactions or cause serious health issues for many people.

Has someone advised you to stop taking your current medication or have they suggested abandoning conventional medical treatments? Never do that without appropriate medical advice.

You Want a Cure and They Want Your Money

They know you’re desperate to feel better so they dangle a cure in front of your eyes. They try to reel you in to make you believe you need it. If you do try it and it doesn’t help, they’ll tell you that you’ve not used it for long enough or you perhaps need to use one of their other products as well. If you want to stop using their product, they’ll convince you that your symptoms will increase tenfold.

You will be considerably out of pocket while contributing towards someone’s luxurious lifestyle.

They might not even have a product – they might just want to reel you in to get your bank details so be very, very cautious.

Report Those Scammers

Most support and awareness groups on Facebook have good admin teams who work hard to try to protect members.

If you are in a group and notice that someone is trying to promote or sell anything suspicious, tell the admin. If a member sends you unsolicited private messages about dubious products or strange advice, tell the admin. You could prevent a scammer from taking advantage of another group member.

Some people fake having an illness to join support groups but they can be very convincing. If you have doubts about another group member, share your suspicions with the admin so they can monitor the member.

In the UK, you can get more advice and report health scammers by visiting Action Fraud.

Fake Cures Give People Fake Hope

These “miracle cures” might give people hope – but it’s false hope.

It’s not nice having to live with pain or illness and we do need hope. But we need realistic hope. We shouldn’t cling on to hope from cruel people who are trying to sell snake oil cures.

Always get medical advice from the correct channels.
Your medical team knows you and your medical history and can help you to make the correct choices.