What should GNC do about BSN?
I was asked this question and can give you an answer without hesitation. They should immediately pull all BSN products off the shelves. They should offer anyone who purchased any BSN products full, no questions asked refunds. They should refuse to ever do any further business with them. There is no excuse for mislabeling products and ripping off consumers. And GNC shouldn’t try the “act dumb” approach.
GNC – General Nutrition Center – is the largest seller of supplements in the United States. They owe it to their customers to fully substantiate all the products they carry. And they should gather this substantiation prior to selling any product. They do not do this. They have never done this and more than likely never will. It’s simply not good for the bottom line.
GNC is notorious for selling any supplement when the demand appears high enough. Demand is created through marketing. The more a company hypes a supplement in their advertising the greater the demand will be. Exaggerate the claims (lie about what the supplement will do) and you create greater demand.
At any given time GNC caries dozens if not hundreds of supplements that are marketed deceptively and fraudulently. And to be fair, GNC is not the only company that does this. Virtually all vitamin stores and discount online stores engage in this without a second thought. Even stores like WalMart do it.
It’s like they are all in on this “don’t ask don’t tell” code of silence. These big retailers know what products are fraudulent especially from the marketing standpoint. And if they don’t know then they are even worse – stupid.
So even though GNC and other retailers don’t market the supplements deceptively themselves, they knowingly and willingly cash in on the fraudulent marketing by the companies of the products they sell. They are just as complicit in the fraud. In fact, they are the ones you hand your money to in exchange for the product. They are the final connection of the fraud.
It’s all about the money.
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Sport Supplement Scams 
It’s not the retailer’s responsibility to test what is in the products they sell. If you know anything about FDA regulations on supplements companies like GNC are not required to test effectiveness of a product. They ARE concerned about how safe a product is and therefore pull products off the shelf that pose risk or concern. GNC’s strategy is to simply get customers to come into their stores and then cross sell their GNC brand name to customers looking for these popular 3rd party products such as BSN. That’s how business work and I wouldn’t expect a customer (such as yourself) to expect a non-gnc product to be regulated in terms of effectiveness by GNC. They actually hope the product doesn’t work so that you come back and buy theirs!
It absolutely is GNC’s responsibility to ensure that the products they sell contain what they say the contain. And it is their responsibility to only sell products that don’t violate FDA and FTC regulations. They are legally bound to operate within the laws and regulations. False advertising by these companies violates FTC and FDA regulations.
GNC can’t insulate themselves legally by playing dumb. They are responsible for what they sell whether it is produced by them under their label or produced by other companies.
But most of all GNC owes it to their customers not to sell fraudulent products. That is the purpose of the article.
As far as the bait and switch tactics, of course they do that. All stores with their own brands do that. They also get kickbacks from companies to switch customers to their respective brands.
Bottom line on that is to educate yourself and definitely don’t rely on a GNC employee for your supplement advice. They have other interests and it’s not to sell you the best products but to sell you what they make the most money from.
I made the mistae of listening to a GNC employee and stacked NO2 blacK CE2 and black powder thinking it was safe but it caused me to have crazed reaction after losing my job. Most of thsee products are absolute junk and I recommend everybody to def steer away from anything not FDA approved.