The common man may have often reported incidents of falling victim to fake ads. However, on Friday Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu revealed he too had fallen for such misleading advertisements.
Naidu made this revelation during a discussion in the Rajya Sabha about adulteration of food. The topic had been initiated by Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Naresh Aggarwal.
Naidu, who is a prominent leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), narrated his agony of being duped and losing Rs 1,000 to a misleading advertisement that claimed a pill could result in weight loss.
"Soon after becoming the vice-president, I came across an advertisement for a medication which promised to help lose weight in 28 days. I talked to a few people. But they said this was not true. Then I saw the advertisement, which mentioned that the consumer needed to pay Rs 1,230 and I made the payment," Naidu said in Rajya Sabha.
Her added that he realised he was conned after he received an empty package.
The former Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting received the packet which asked him to pay Rs 1,000 more in order to get the "original medicine".
When he brought the issue to the notice of the consumer affairs ministry, a preliminary enquiry proved that hat the advertisement was being hosted from the US, reported the Times of India.
"The government must take measures to stop this menace no matter whether the advertisements are originating from the US or any other country," Naidu said.
Ram Vilas Paswan, the current Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, said his ministry was working on formulating new legislation in order to make companies that make false promises through advertisements answerable to the law.
