Legitscript.org

I am delighted that I took the time to read the reviews before committing to a Google Ads account that mandated Legit Script. In all honesty, the claims of legitimacy are far from true. It appears to be a complete rip-off, operating like an extortion scheme where you have to pay to even participate, without any acknowledgment of valid lab certifications.

Unfortunately, my experience with them led me to believe that they are nothing but scammers.

Legit scripts is another example of a company taking on more services than they can offer. They're easy with collecting the few thousands of dollars to open up their account as required ridiculously by Google but to return calls or emails they are very poor at. I urge you to avoid them at all costs even though they're the only game in town. They don't even get a star for not answering or responding after 3 weeks. Dr J.

Criminals. They are a cartel of greedy criminals. But you have nothing to do about it. Because this is the stupid world were living in right now.
Just pay them and they will shut the **** up.

I love these reviews cuz whenever I need something it's always there I have never seen a place where they actually send you gift cards and money

This is completely ridiculous. In order for me to purchase ads on Google, they wanted me to submit to certification through this third party I've never even heard of. I'm already fully licensed and board certified through my state regulatory boards, why would I also need to pay and have the approval of these grifters? I refuse, my business will NOT be extorted.

Facebook and Google have basically anointed Legitscript monopoly powers over who can and cannot advertise legitimate drug treatment and rehab services.
Their fees are excessive and approval process is capricious and non-transparent.

In prior times when regulatory oversight was fairly applied by the federal government, legitscript would likely be charged with racketeering.

This company is very thorough with their professional certification. They carefully go through your answers to their 37 Questions, check your uploaded documents, examine your websites and domain-claims, and ask you questions in the areas of their concerns. This company is very trustworthy maintaining the integrity of online medical and paramedical professional services. They represent and protect the safety of the patients who use online services for their healthcare. We need to have a standard that s trusted for the health and hope of the people. That is what LegitScript represents. I applied for their Certification; they did not ask me to apply. I needed their Certification; it was not the other way round. It was rigorous. It took six weeks. I believe others can pull through if they patiently regard their professional status. I encourage us to have the discipline to allow an independent honest Body examine us and call the result. It is Not easy; It is Not cheap; If you persevere you will pull through. You cannot quantify the amount of work done remotely by LegitScript evaluating your company before they put their Stamp for you. I do Not believe they are interested in Money. Rather, I am convinced they are maintaining a very good standard for the safety of Lives in our Noble professions.

This company was founded by John Horton, who was a White House aide on drug policy issues from 2002 to 2007. He obviously now is trying to strike it rich with this bs company. I got a reply from them with mistakes so egregious I immediately asked for my money back. I will be lodging a formal complaint with the proper federal government.

They do nothing except take your money. Cannot talk to a person on the phone. You send your information and make payment and never hear anything from them again. Total scam and ripoff.

I am helping a non-profit drug treatment center get ads going. They are trying to extort $6,000 up front for their 4 locations and $12,000/year ongoing just to say they are "legit". They have been around for decades. This is such a rip off!

This is currently the only certification approved to run ads on Facebook, Google, etc. The prices are astronomical, and it seems ridiculous when you take into account the approvals and certifications clinics and physicians go through. You essentially pay a huge price for this certification just to pay more to run ads! If this was a government-backed or approved verification system it may be reasonable. But this is a private company that has found a way to profit big from the health care business. There's nothing extra that even qualifies them to take on the role of certifier.

So Google will not allow medical providers to advertise through their AdWords account unless the medical provider (in my case, who is already in compliance with state & federal law, and who operates with a verifiable NPI #) pays this company which I have never heard of before $1500 for "Certification" to run ads online as a medical provider.

At first, they began flagging my account for no reason: "Speculative and experimental medical treatment," were applied to tried and true procedures which are routine in our office. Not "Certified" to advertise in Sweden, Argentina, etc. when all I wanted was to advertise within a 50 mile radius of my office.

Then, when I called and requested that my ads be reviewed, I was informed that the only way to ensure that this doesn't happen again was to purchase LegitScript certification. This is basically a bribe so that your account doesn't get flagged by the major advertisers.

If it isn't a bribe, consider this: why wouldn't Google or Facebook just request legitimate medical providers to provide their state-issued NPI # or their medical license #? This would mean that the company is already in compliance with the government.

Instead, these tech companies made this LegitScript company up as a scam to defraud American medical providers.

As someone who runs my AdWords account for less than a few thousand a year, this additional $1500 start-up fee, plus a $1000 annual fee is prohibitively expensive.

I'll just allocate my online marketing budget for some billboards next year instead...

P.S. I should mention that I did try calling Legit Script to investigate our options with them. There was no answer during normal business hours, and no way to leave a voicemail. So, if that is not a "front" for a scam, then I don't know what is.

I am glad I looked into the reviews before signing up for a Google Ads that required Legit Script. There is nothing legit about it. Total rip off extortion pay to play that doesn't recognize lab certifications.

Please stay away from the services of orangewebsite.com, they will lure you into the traps of legitscript.com and legitscript will illegally seize or hijack your domain name especially when you have an e-commerce website.

They go my advertisement dissaproved with google. I am board certified in addiciton medicine. If google doesnt want my money they can forget about it. I have local billboards and will keep Lamar happy. Spend locally then giving it to these crooks. Scam artisit number one. Wont be giving my hard earned $******* for free.

I was attempting to get my supplement products certified in order to advertise on FB & Instagram. I was instructed by LegitScript to get a Global Product Review in order to get my supplement company certified. After paying $370 and after several weeks I was instructed that the Global Product Review is not a certification. FB is requiring a link to a certification which I never received from LegitScript. After speaking with Allison Wiltse she attempted to justify why she told me to get a Global Product Review knowing that it did not provide the certification necessary to run the FB ads. I am baffled why FB would recommend LegitScript knowing that they are a complete SCAM!

As a professional in the digital marketing field, it's companies like this that make survival for good businesses difficult. They stand as a vetting process to keep illegitimate businesses from advertising on the web. Charge large sums of money to vet for Google. Take six months to perform the process. Most of the worst companies got vetted before the legitimate organizations. Poor communication. After total compliance, they still don't provide the vetting promised.

I had a medical restriction put on my Adwords account for a surgical medical practice originally for a mention of a drug, I removed the drug article which was for information purposes only. I tried to tell Google review team we do not sell drugs and therefore do not qualify as an "online pharmacy" the supervisor then came on the call and said if we use anethesia we need to get a certificate through LegitScript. He didn't tell me it would cost $1500 to start and $995 a year there after for this bogus certification that Google is requiring. Total rip off.

Legitscript is a self-appointed, opaque, unelected, unaccountable, for profit regulatory body offering or withholding their "certification" to licensed, insured, experienced, proven, ethical, board certified physicians and surgeons for telemedicine. Legitscript has insufficient expertise, little if any physicians in management, communicates with arrogance and condescension, is incompetent (poor legal knowledge), and DANGEROUS by blocking the expansion of high quality contemporary professional services to the online marketplace. Meanwhile, fraudulent businesses proliferate and populate every corner of the web without restraint. Legitscript is an antonym, suggestive of an opposite function from reality.

This company is the reason why drug addicts are getting LESS help than more. And i just read this online... "Legitscript are under criminal..."
Currently criminal defamation proceedings are going on against LEGITSCRIPT LLC, John Horton (President and CEO Legitscript)

Legit Script is a fraud. It is a Google business that is used to prey off of the medical commmunity. They will take your deposit and not refund after they try and scheme you for more. Terrible bsuiness

LegitScript supposedly reviews online pharmacies to help the consumer not get ripped off. I was shocked to see them claiming perfectly decent businesses offering good quality drugs were "rogue," like KiwiDrug i nNew Zealand, InHouse Pharmacy in the UK, and many in the Canada. You can't trust LegitScript's review of any pharmacy. They have their own agenda.

Currently criminal defamation proceedings are going on against LEGITSCRIPT LLC, John Horton (President and CEO Legitscript) and Emily Emanuel (COO Legitscript) at the court of the Hon. Judicial Magistrate First Class, Pune, India. Based on the criminal complaints against the crime accused Legitscript, John Horton and Emily Emanuel, Police Inspector (Crime), Vimantal Police Station, Pune City, Maharashtra, India started the criminal investigation under the provisions of section 499 & 500 of Indian Penal Code along with section 66 of Information Technology Act. They may face two-year jail term in Indian jail if convicted.So far number of warrants have been issued against the crime accused Legitscript, John Horton and Emily Emanuel however they have not appeared nor co-operated in this criminal investigation. More updates at http://www.policenoticeagainstlegitscript.com/

LegitScript – Not So Legit?

On March 3,2010, in Online Pharmacy Verification Services, by Tod Cooperman, MD, President, PharmacyChecker.com, and Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com

A firm called Legit Script claims to be protecting people by labeling legitimate Canadian and other non-U.S. Pharmacies as "Unapproved" or "Rogue." This serves the big pharmaceutical interests but not the American consumer. More than that, its founder, John Horton, appears to have exploited his former government position to establish LS for his own gain.

[UPDATE 9/16/2010: See "Call for Investigation of John Horton, President of LegitScript, for Possible Government Ethics Violations"]

The Set Up:

In 2007, John Horton worked in the Bush White House as Deputy Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). As Horton's LinkedIn page (accessed 3/3/2010) states:

"I served as the primary staff person responsible for advising the "Drug Czar" and coordinating federal policy on several issues, including prescription drug-related issues (including Internet pharmacy policy) and several chemical control issues. I authored the Administration's National Synthetic Drug Control Strategy and co-authored the President's National Drug Control Strategy in the years from 2002 until 2007."

Congress had called for a report from ONDCP to propose a "strategy to stop advertisements that provide information about obtaining over the Internet drugs…without the use of a lawful prescription" (Our emphasis). Moreover, Congress' request was limited in scope to controlled substances. Horton, as the chief staff person on this assignment, apparently switched the focus of the report from preventing access to controlled medicines without prescriptions (with which PharmacyChecker fully agrees) to denying Americans access to any type of medicine, even with a valid prescription, if coming from a Canadian pharmacy. The absurdity of this switch is that reputable licensed Canadian pharmacies require prescriptions and won't even sell controlled substances to Americans. We believe this switch was encouraged by big pharmaceutical interests, who make less money when drugs are purchased at lower cost outside the U.S. To achieve their purpose, the report took aim at search engines as well asThe ONDCP's paper stated:

"Both Google and Yahoo use a third-party system called PharmacyChecker to verify whether websites seeking to advertise an online pharmacy are legitimate. However, PharmacyChecker has approved several websites from Canada that may be operating lawfully in Canada, but offer prescription drugs to United States consumers…"

The paper noted that "not all VIPPS pharmacies appear to be recognized in the PharmacyChecker system." [VIPPS is the verification program of the National Boards of Pharmacy in the U.S. and excludes Canadian pharmacies from membership.] The paper goes onto to draw the baseless conclusion that, "For all these reasons, PharmacyChecker is not an adequate, reliable verification system…"

Approving safe, lawful Canadian pharmacies which require prescriptions certainly does not make PharmacyChecker"inadequate" or "unreliable." Quite the contrary. Nevertheless, the paper lays out the plan that we believe Horton hatched, promoted and attempted to execute for the past three years:

"The DEA, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and/or ONDCP will meet with the major Internet advertising services (Google, Yahoo and others) to encourage voluntary action such that only online pharmacies in compliance with Federal and State laws are advertised through the major Internet advertising services. Search engines will be requested to voluntarily adopt standards that comply and encourage consumer compliance with Federal and State laws and regulations, and Boards of Pharmacy standards. This will be done in consultation with the State Boards of Pharmacy through the NABP."

As we see it, Horton was setting the stage for his company, LegitScript, to use this "U.S. Only" standard to displace PharmacyChecker as the leading certifier of online pharmacies and to pressure the search engines into blocking advertising of lower cost pharmacies in Canada and elsewhere. While Horton was a government employee, on March 20,2007 his company's domain name legitscript was registered: On April 16,2007, Horton's government office submitted the paper quoted above to Congress and, having planted the seed, Horton immediately left office and registered LegitScript as a for-profit company in Virginia and, later, as a not-for-profit entity in his home state of Oregon.

This chronology indicates, at least to us, that Horton manipulated and exploited his position as Deputy Director of a White House office for his personal gain. This raises a question in our view of whether his conduct violated The US Office of Government Ethics' Misuse of Position policy which states that "Executive branch employees must not use their public office for their own or another's private gain."

Misleading Reports:

Horton apparently approached the search engines and others to promote the use of LegitScript and/or VIPPS in place of PharmacyChecker and it's not surprising that VIPPS now endorses LegitScript as a reputable verification service). Perhaps rebuffed by these companies, Horton issued two reports, each focused on a different search engine, and each claiming that over 80% of pharmacy advertisers found were "illegal" or "rogue" when, in fact, most of these were licensed foreign pharmacies selling real medicine and requiring prescriptions.

From his trumped up research, Horton went on to make the outrageous accusation that search engines were "sponsors" of rogue Internet pharmacies tied to "foreign (mainly Russian, Eastern Europe, and Chinese) organized criminal networks that are thought to fund other illicit activities including, in some cases, terrorism." There is little doubt that LegitScripts intention was to embarrass the search engines and cast doubt on the PharmacyChecker Verification Program.

Horton's Real Business:

Despite LegitScript's efforts, traffic to its site has been scant — less than 900 unique visitors per month in January 2010, compared to 104,000 per month to PharmacyChecker. However, as we see it, Horton's purpose was not to help consumers find safe and affordable pharmacies, but to help deny Americans, especially the uninsured, access to lower priced medications. He has revealed his purpose in several ways: He dissolved LegitScript as a non-profit organization in Oregon on April 8th, 2009 and then registered LegitScript as a for-profit LLC on August 17th, 2009. At the same time, records at the Oregon Secretary of State Corporation Division show that Horton registered a firm called Evergreen Government Relations, giving the same address as LegitScript, apparently expecting to cash in on his government connections and influence on the behalf of corporate clients.* A week earlier, on August 10th 2009, he abandoned his registration at the U.S. Trademark Office to use "LegitScript Certified" as a certification mark for Internet pharmacies. Working for companies to get government agencies to pressure search engines and domain registers is where the action is for John Horton.

Making Money:

LegitScript. Adamantly denies that it is a "front for big PhRMA" and claims that it is funded by its employees. But unlike pharmacy verification groups like VIPPS and PharmacyChecker, it does not charge pharmacies a fee for its verification service. So where does its revenue come from, or where does Horton get the money to fund it? The website says it offers "market research reports" regarding the Internet pharmacy and online pharmaceuticals markets. And who might be the customers of such "research"? We think it's fair to assume that its big pharma, including big US pharmacies. LegitScript. May not expect to make money from its verification program, and it doesn't care because its money may come from elsewhere.

Be On the Look Out:

If LegitScript. Releases other "research reports, " keep in mind John Horton's real agenda. And if search engines exclude safe, low cost pharmacies from advertising (and one recently did) or, worse yet, block them from appearing at all, we believe that LegitScript. And John Horton, serving his masters, may have had a hand in it.

We at PharmacyChecker think that shutting down "rogue pharmacies" that sell narcotics, or any drug, without a prescription is right. LegitScript's efforts in that direction are commendable. But shutting down access by Americans to safe and affordable prescription medication is bad policy, unethical and unfair; and using government position and influence to get this done seems a misuse of power. These appear, however, to be the tactics of LegitScript.