Are sketchy dietary supplements tainting your merchant portfolio? If your merchant sells weight loss, sexual enhancement, or bodybuilding supplements, there’s a chance they may contain hidden ingredients that could harm public health. The FDA routinely tests these products in its lab and maintains a growing list of products found to be tainted. According to the FDA, undeclared adverse ingredients include:
“Approved prescription drug ingredients and their analogs, drugs banned by FDA for safety reasons, controlled substances such as anabolic steroids and stimulant diet drugs, or new active drug ingredients that are untested and unstudied.”
The FDA regularly issues public notifications about products consumers should not buy because of hidden ingredients. They have issued the most warnings, by far, about sexual enhancement products. This is because many of these supplements secretly contain sildenafil or tadalafil, the active ingredients in Viagra and Cialis, respectively. This poses a risk to all consumers, but especially to those who have heart conditions or take nitrate medications.
These products include Arize, ForeverMen, Wild Bull, Rhino 7S Type F3 7000, and Infinity 10K. They are sold at local gas stations or online through adult specialty shops, but they can even end up on the virtual shelves of major retailers and marketplaces. Nefarious actors may also launder sales of tainted supplements through seemingly benign online shops. This practice is known as transaction laundering.
If the card brands determine that they are unknowingly facilitating payments for tainted supplements, they may protect consumers by levying heavy fines on acquiring banks. However, in a dynamic industry with many different products, it is difficult to stay up to date on the latest regulations. You will need active monitoring to stay ahead of the trends. Protect yourself with G2 Risk Solutions. We have both the technology and human expertise to catch these violating products and remove them from your portfolio before they can do harm.
To talk to an expert or learn more, contact us.