Bloomingdale, IL (April 13, 2023) – NOW recently discovered multiple fraudulent supplements sold on Amazon impersonating the NOW brand as well as another prominent supplement brand. NOW began investigating after being notified by several consumers about suspicious NOW branded products they had purchased.
NOW discovered that one fraudulent company, operating under the name of A2X1, has been selling 11 different counterfeit NOW supplements on Amazon USA for about two weeks. These products look like NOW supplements at first appearance, but the packaging, labels, and contents are clearly falsified. Each product contains small white capsules with an odorless white powder.
Today NOW concluded its analysis of the white powders in the capsules and confirmed that they contain white rice flour. NOW also found trace amounts of the pharmaceutical Sildenafil in some samples, which is being reported to the FDA and, as a result, expect Amazon to do a recall of all items sold on Amazon by the seller A2X1.
“It’s enraging that these criminals are trying to cash in on trust in the NOW brand, earned over decades, to defraud consumers,” said Dan Richard, NOW Health Group VP of Global Sales and Marketing.
On April 11 Amazon agreed to block all sales by the seller A2X1. NOW has asked Amazon to recall each item sold, and give NOW a list of these consumers, plus inventory levels and information about the fraudulent seller.
While investigating this problem, NOW discovered that the same seller listed several vitamins from another prominent supplement brand as well. NOW has been in communication with that company and is working with them to get to the source of this problem.
“We remain on high alert regarding this problem and have contacted the FDA Health Fraud Brand division as well as Amazon’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit,” Dan said. “Additional legal steps are being taken in order to find the source of the problem and put it out of business. However, we fear that these fraudulent products may reappear on Amazon by a different seller name, or on another platform or in other international markets.”
NOW is actively working to resolve this safety threat and consider this matter as the highest priority. Anyone who can assist in this investigation is asked to call NOW’s Customer Service team at 800-999-8069 x 2.
Some examples of fraudulent products appear in images below:
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