Original article (in Serbian) was published on 01/10/2022
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) formally still exists, although, after the 2020 elections, it is mentioned in public primarily regarding the private life of Cedomir Jovanovic, its leader. When you type ldp.rs into the search engine, you can see that the domain of the once popular party – which it still presents as its own – is currently being used to promote dubious medical products that are manipulatively advertised on the Internet to deceive gullible citizens.
“We will never give up”, the LDP continues to say on its Twitter account, which, except for the holidays, has not been active for almost two years, although Jovanovic said at the end of September in Kurir’s television show “Sceniranje” that “he will certainly return to the work that did not complete”. The first stop on that road could be the return of the internet domain of this party, where the site called “LDP Fitness” is currently located. It does not have Impressum, and it was registered on October 30, 2020, and its registration expires in precisely one month.
Fraud based on the established matrix
LDP Fitness consists of a series of nonsensical articles divided into Beauty, Health and Weight Loss sections. The texts are full of spelling and grammatical errors, which indicates automatic translation from a foreign language for quick and easy marketing on the domestic market. If you were to believe one of the stories from the LDP Fitness site and wanted to order one of the advertised products, the site would direct you to a linked page that looks almost the same as many of the advertising pages that FakeNews Tragac has already noted in its Registry of scam sites.
“Foods that are good for the prostate, and Pro Caps provides protection from prostate cancer cells, pumpkin seeds can help soothe the signs and symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) where the prostate grows and also triggers problems with urination” ldp.rs, autumn of 2022
Let’s take, for example, the advertisement for Pro Caps, allegedly “a natural product that prevents and eliminates swelling, chronic and acute prostatitis”. The price is, of course, always reduced by 50%, and the number of other items in stock is constantly decreasing below the window where you need to enter your information to order the product. However, the number of items will magically increase once you open the page again. There are, of course, doctors and pharmacists, as well as experts in urology and men’s health who recommend the product – Milos Stojkovic, Branko Blagojevic, Vuk Ivanovic and Dragan Kovacevic, who all have their “twins” with different names on different sides of the globe (1, 2, 3, 4).
That’s not all. You can also do a quick test that will determine the condition of your prostate. Even if you answer all the questions from the test as if you have absolutely no symptoms of prostatitis, the site warns you – “This is a good result, which, however, can often be misleading. Do not forget that prostatitis often appears without symptoms or in a mild form!”. In addition to this deception, there are, of course, fake reviews from satisfied users, non-existent awards that the product has allegedly won, and many other deceptive persuasion techniques.
Alternative medicine
By the way, LDP leader Cedomir Jovanovic has recently been attracting the media’s attention because of his experience with COVID-19 and other problems due to which, according to the media, he was “on the edge between life and death”. After long-term treatment with conventional medicine, alternative medicine helped him recover – he claims. As the media reported, he was treated with tinctures and kerosene by an old man Milovan on Tara, and an elderly woman in Lajkovac fixed his stomach with a jar and a candle. If we also consider that Jovanovic is known as a sports guy, the appearance of a misleading site under the name LDP Fitness on the domain of the LDP party may seem like an unsavoury joke.
However, little is funny about this industry of manipulative advertising on the Internet, as evidenced by the numerous pleas of deceived customers who have reported to Tragac in previous years. You can read about possible protection models and the legal framework in our publication “Online fraud and how to resist it”.
