I know what it's like to feel so desperate to want to lose weight

DRAGONS' DEN STAR SARA DAVIES TELLS HANNAH STEPHENSON ABOUT HER NIGHTMARE WITH DIET PILL SCAMMERS

- HANNAH STEPHENSON

DRAGONS' DEN star Sara Davies is warning of the diet pill scammers who are using her name to sell their products.

"I've had a nightmare with that recently," says the entrepreneur and crafting queen, who has dropped two dress sizes since cutting out sugar, chocolate, cake, cutting down her alcohol intake and running regularly, after being warned she was borderline pre-diabetic.

"Those b***** diet pill [scammers] that keep using my face on Facebook and Instagram adverts, of people saying, 'Sara invested in us in the den and this is how she's lost all the weight' - that is awful.

"What frightens me is the amount of people who've got in touch because they've bought them, thinking that is actually how I lost weight. It's just scammers.

"It's like 'whack-a-mole'. As soon as you knock one down, another one pops up. One of my friends told me her mam had seen this and thought, 'Oh well, if Sara's invested in it, it must be right.'

"She had paid the £99 or whatever and was thinking she was getting sent some pills from China.

"It terrifies me that people are losing a lot of money and that these pills might come in the post. They might take them. God knows what they're taking.

"But I know what it's like to feel so desperate to want to lose weight."

Perhaps that's the price of fame for the business entrepreneur, who is stepping back from Dragons' Den to focus on her recently resumed role as CEO of craft supply firm Crafter's Companion, after rescuing the company ear-lier this year when it was put into administration.

"It's been really difficult. For the last 12 to 18 months, the investors who had the majority share of the business had a different direction. It was really difficult for me to sit and watch that from the sidelines."