Obesity is a serious problem in many parts of the world and not everybody finds it simple to eat and exercise in a way that will help the pounds melt away at a healthy rate – and then stay off. This is especially true of the morbidly obese who may wish to lose the weight but who face a significantly more challenging struggle both in the size of the goal and in the unpleasant sensations that dieting can represent.

For this reason, many people are seeking the assistance of diet pills to help them in their overall efforts for weight loss. Indeed, diet pills cannot do the job on their own, but they do give people an advantage over their food cravings and energy levels so that they can build the healthy eating and activity lifestyle they require to lose the weight on their own.

The important thing to remember when wanting to buy weight loss products is that there are many unscrupulous people and companies out there who know how important it is to lose weight and how difficult it can be. Many of these companies will use misleading advertising, false claims and other lies in order to make money from people who simply want to lose weight. Thus, it is very important to remain diligent and know how to spot a diet pill scam.

So how do you know which diet pills are the real deal and which ones should be avoided? The first step is to speak with your doctor. He or she may be able to recommend diet pills that will best be able to help you depending on your unique health situation, goals, and expectations.

Aside from your doctor’s assistance, though, there are some red flags to watch for when you’re making the final selection, to help you to determine whether or not you should make that purchase and take the pills. The following are some common diet pill scams that you should watch out for and avoid at all costs:

• Weight loss patches – these are adhesive patches that you press onto the places on your body where you would like weight loss to occur. Unfortunately, there is nothing in the patch that would actually cause weight loss – though it pretends to be the same thing, it is not the same concept as the quit-smoking patch or the pain patch.

• Herbal teas – these also refer to themselves as detox teas for weight loss. They claim that they will help you to rid yourself of built-up toxins in your body, flushing away extra weight. The thing is, if you have regular bowel movements, then you are already flushing away toxins in your body. Your body is carefully designed to rid itself of toxins, otherwise you would rapidly poison yourself.

• Topical creams – similar to the patches, they promise to allow you to rub them on your skin to reduce your weight. It simply cannot be done that way.

• Weight Loss with no diet or exercise – any diet pill that promises that you will lose weight without having to change your eating or exercise is a scam. Diet pills, whether they are prescription or non-prescription, require you to eat a healthier, calorie-controlled diet and increase your physical activity to lose weight.

• No customer service contact information – many websites that are trying to hook people with their diet pill scams will not provide contact information for customer service in case you have a problem with their product. Reliable places to buy weight loss products will provide not only an email address, but a phone number for customer service. Before you buy, check both of these by calling and emailing to make sure you get a real person.

• Ordering a product requires you to buy a membership – some websites that sell diet pills and other weight loss products require you to pay for a monthly membership to receive their products, often at “discounted” prices. These memberships are very difficult to cancel because they are charged monthly to your credit card. It is recommended that you not buy any product that requires you to become a member.

• Free trials – free trials can sound tempting, but you should know by now that nothing comes for free. Diet pill and weight loss product sites that say they offer “free trials” always, always, always have a catch and you will end up paying in the end, often more than you could imagine. If you want to buy diet pills, do this from a reputable company and don’t bother with the free trials.