Hi. I’m Dr. Darlene and I Lost 40lbs on the HCG Diet System.

Don’t believe me? Well take a look at this…

Click to enlarge – Screen Shot of the site that stole my image.

Yup that’s me. You might not recognize my long hair and the 1 year old "Little Guy" on my hip but those pictures were swiped right from my Weight Loss Progression page.

Some bottom feeder of a company decided they could just use my image as an example for their shady weight loss system. Well, they messed with the wrong blogger.

Don’t ask because I’m not going to give them any attention by linking. I already sent them an email to which they responded….

Hello:

We outsourced this website and were unaware that your picture was taken without your permission.  It will be gone within 24 hours as you requested.  Our apologies to you. 

Sincerely,

HCG Staff

Poppycock.

I wonder how many times that email was sent out. Is it just me or does it sound like a form letter?

I can only assume the images of other people on the page are also bogus. Right? Well here’s the kicker. This was taken directly from their DISCLAIMER page….

ANY CLAIMS MADE OF ACTUAL WEIGHT LOSS OR EXAMPLES OF ACTUAL RESULTS CAN BE VERIFIED UPON REQUEST.

Oh really? Well considering Darlene doesn’t exist or at least isn’t ME I’m curious how they would "verify" her success. Hmm wonder if they’d send you a picture? oh.. wait.

As of now I’m STILL on their shady site. It’s been 9 hours.

Needless to say, this pisses me off.

Last year I wrote a post called Do you believe what you see? which focused on airbrushing in magazines but there’s a bigger issue here.

How many times have you watched an infomercial, read an ad in a magazine, admired a success story or testimonial, and considered or bought the product they were selling? I think it’s human nature to WANT to believe these things but the truth is they lie. They lie through their teeth! The stories, the images, the claims, it’s all bogus. If it sounds/looks/appears too good to be true it is.

The only way to lose weight is to eat less and move more. I’m sorry, it simply is. For YEARS I listened to these snake oil salesmen hoping there was a magic pill, some combination of food or a secret I wasn’t aware of. I find myself still mesmerized by the late night infomercials, but this incident was the last straw. Not only do they make crazy outlandish claims but they FAKE their own success stories??

I don’t know. Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, maybe you all knew this already, but these companies make a lot of money preying off other people’s insecurities, and MAN that makes me angry.

ok. Vent over. Off to see if my image is still there.

I forgot to add it was Liz at Shedding the Fat-Suit who found my pics. THANKS LIZ!

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