False celebrity endorsements

Dr. Oz: “False celebrity endorsements are stealing money and health from consumers, and it has to stop. I recently came across an online pitch for ‘Dr. Oz’s Diabetes Breakthrough.’ It is not legit. But it’s just one more scam in a 13-years-long battle I’ve been fighting against fake celebrity endorsements. It started when I was on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show.’ We’re now sending out around 3,000 cease and desist letters every year.”

To sound the alarm about these scams, Dr. Mehmet Oz and Kai Falkenberg, a media lawyer and lecturer at Columbia Law School, penned an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal on April 14, 2019. In December 2018, the Better Business Bureau published a study, Subscription Traps and Deceptive Free Trials Scam Millions with Misleading Ads and Fake Celebrity Endorsements. It notes that, “dozens of celebrity names are used by these frauds without their knowledge or permission.”

Sometimes, though, there’s a reckoning. The Federal Trade Commission did go after one company that appropriated Dr. Oz and others, and cheated thousands of customers. In February of this year they mailed 27,995 checks totaling more than $6 million to consumers who purchased products from Tarr, Inc.

The damage is not merely financial; these companies can threaten the health of the people who buy their products. The outlandish claims make people believe they can forgo their prescribed medications and the product can cause bodily harm.

It takes tech companies’ intervention to block false ads on their platforms, federal regulations that can keep the global network of scammers in check, and consumer education. In Europe, Facebook and other platforms are responsible for false and deceptive advertising that they post and profit from. But here, there are no laws that protect influencers and victims.