With swimsuit season only a month away, millions of Americans are turning to weightloss products to give them a little extra push for getting in shape, and in the age of online shopping, Amazon dominates the landscape. But can their “top rated” recommendations be trusted after multiple reports of the website being overrun by paid fake reviews and unscrupulous vendors who would stop at nothing to make it to Amazon’s top list?

As of this writing, the highest reviewed weightloss product on Amazon.com is not Hydroxycut, Liporidex, Cellucor, or any of the name brands that consumers know and trust and that have been market leaders for years, but a product you have most likely never heard of. W700 Thermogenic Hypermetabolizer by UberVita is a newcomer claiming to be an “extreme weightloss supplement” and the “most powerful and trusted Thermogenic Diet Pill in the industry.” It also toots being “the fat burner used by elite professional atheletes (sic).” UberVita is also for “individuals who want to loss weight (sic)”.

When the company was asked via email, as well as on their Amazon sales page for the names of these “top athletes,” and for the exact ingredients of the product, they refused to answer.

The ingredients of W700 are simply listed as “Weight loss thermogenic vitamins and supplements.” Their website text is equally short. The closest we could find was a photo of W700’s label listing 468 milligrams of proprietary blend. According to supplement labeling regulations, the ingredients must be listed in order of prevalence, which means that W700 is mostly caffeine. How much of it? That’s anyone’s guess, and the company refuses to give more specific information even to emailed inquiries from concerned reviewers.

UberVita also dodged questions from Amazon shoppers asking whether they were posting their own fake reviews. The answer came from users who said they received offers of a full refund in exchange for a 5 star review. Shoppers report similar fake-review dumps starting to appear under the company’s other products, also listed on Amazon.

Unfortunately, when real customers report the obvious fake reviews, Amazon ignores the issue. They send a standard response about “thoroughly investigating all reports of review abuse”, signed by “Review Moderator at Amazon.com,” and then they do nothing. Why would they? They are making money on these scams!

So what can be done? The first step is reporting the scam to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The company’s products make false claims, which the FDA takes very seriously. Report it at 1-800-FDA-1088 and https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/.

They are also posting their own fake and misleading positive reviews, as well as refunding customers their money in exchange for false positive reviews, both of which are violations the FTC has cracked down on in the past. Report it at (202) 326-2222 and on https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/. And if you are not disillusioned with Amazon.com yet, report it to them too, at the very least they will refund you the money you paid for a worthless product sold under false pretenses.