The Fulfillment Lab, Inc.
5136 W Clifton St
Tampa, FL 33634-8012
(813) 444-3455
If you've been on the internet long enough you might have seen an advertisement for Keto pills, weight loss pills, male enhancement pills, the list goes on. It goes something like this, you can get an expensive bottle of these almost magic pills supposedly featured on Shark Tank or Dragon's Den for free. All you have to do is pay 3 dollars in shipping. Well, you enter your card details and you go on your way. Next thing you know you're being charged over 100 dollars for some more pills you didn't want. So you have to call the customer service number and figure out what is going on. They tell you that you signed up to get billed monthly and you failed to cancel before the 14 days. You try and argue with the rep that you never were told you were signing up for a subscription and you were under the impression you only made a 1 time payment. The rep tells you that you should have read the terms of service before purchasing. Even though before you checked out, there was no text explaining it was a monthly subscription. That kind of business practice is whats known as a “negative option feature”. explained by the FTC as," A “negative option” is any type of sales term or condition that allows a seller to interpret a customer's silence, or failure to take an affirmative action, as acceptance of an offer". https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/10/02/2019-21265/rule-concerning-the-use-of-prenotification-negative-option-plans
Its quite deceptive to bury that bill in the terms & conditions to begin with considering almost nobody reads them. In fact a study done by Deloitte of 2,000 participants found that 91% of Americans don't read the Legal agreement. You can learn more about that here https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/us-tmt-2017-global-mobile-consumer-survey-executive-summary.pdf
Combining that with the fact that you are not required to check a box to acknowledge that you agree on most of these sites. And you intentionally have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the tiny print that says terms and conditions (which can be hard for someone to see if they have vision problems). Not to mention a lot of these weight loss pill and male enhancement pill sites have a timer at the top of the page saying you have a limited time to buy before your offer expires. That is a recipe for tons of people to get robbed blind. And its intentional. Most of the time crossing the line for being illegal.
Being charged is the least of peoples worries. A lot of these pills are unregulated and can be potentially dangerous. These sketchy pills that make all these claims usually fall under the category of "dietary supplements" and aren't subject to the same scrutiny as pharmaceuticals. And on top of that, usually it isn't explained where its made, who is making it, or what conditions its made under. So for all you know it could be made in a decrepit sweat shop somewhere in South America.
The Fulfillment Lab is a company that essentially specializes in packaging, shipping, and warehousing. You send them your product, they label and ship it out to your customers. Seems like a normal business. Until you dig just a little bit deeper. Upon doing research into some male enhancement pills. One pill in particular called Raging Lion. I discovered they were using a P.O. box owned by The Fulfillment Lab P.O Box 153201 Suite 1093 Tampa, FL 33684. The company selling the pills has an F rating on the Better Better Business Bureau as well as 70 plus complaints filed against it. https://www.bbb.org/us/fl/tampa/profile/not-elsewhere-classified/raging-lion-0653-90278748
After looking into The Fulfillment Labs, they too have an F rating as well as multiple complains on their BBB page. But not only that, they were noted by the BBB as being a "hub for problematic online sellers" due to a large about of these pill scams that use their distribution center to ship out these fake pills. Pills which keep in mind are unregulated and can also have nasty side effects that usually are not disclosed to the customer before they buy them.
https://www.bbb.org/us/fl/tampa/profile/not-elsewhere-classified/the-fulfillment-lab-inc-0653-90142042
The BBB describes the practices of The Fulfillment Lab, Inc. perfectly "According to information in BBB files, The Fulfillment Lab appears to be a hub for problematic online sellers to conduct business. The Fulfillment Lab has knowledge that it has, as customers, many online sellers that are using deceptive practices to enroll consumers into continuity programs. The Fulfillment Lab chooses to continue to do business with these customers, profiting off of their financial successes that are born from these deceptive practices."
It's quite clear that The Fulfillment Lab, Inc doesn't care on what gets sent out and or any repercussions that may occur when someone buys and takes one of these unregulated products. A business exist to make money however, it should be a businesses number 1 priority to make sure that anyone buying or otherwise using their product, service, or any other offering is safe or made aware of the possible dangers of taking and or using their product. Furthermore, it should be the responsibility The Fulfillment Lab's affiliates are making their products ethically and are safe to be consumed or otherwise used if its going to be pushed to peoples homes.
To wrap this up, its quite a shame that bogus untested pills are being sold to people with the intent to defraud people. And its made especially worse when a company makes an effort to disregard the safety of anyone and instead focus on pulling as much money as possible regardless of who pays them or what impact the product they push may have.
Their LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tflgfs
Resources:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21758130/ns/health-mens_health/t/all-natural-sex-pills-pose-hidden-dangers/#.XfWgUGRKiUm
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/technology-media-telecommunications/us-tmt-2017-global-mobile-consumer-survey-executive-summary.pdf
https://www.businessinsider.com/deloitte-study-91-percent-agree-terms-of-service-without-reading-2017-11
https://www.bbb.org/us/fl/tampa/profile/not-elsewhere-classified/the-fulfillment-lab-inc-0653-90142042
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NikuIurQtiM&t=1173s
https://www.fda.gov/drugs/medication-health-fraud/tainted-weight-loss-products
Credit to @PlayerFridei for the find