A DIET pill offer based on a fake newspaper clipping and a note from a "friend" is being sent to homes in Swindon.

Berry Trim Plus is often sold by sending people what are designed to look like torn-out newspaper adverts for the pills.

Along the top is scrawled the message "try it, it works", as if the clipping has been posted by an anonymous friend.

But many nutritionists con-demn the pills as useless and the internet teems with criticism of the pills and the marketing strategy.

Swindon woman Jill Norcup, who diets and exercises in an effort to keep her weight down, was offended when she received a copy.

She said: "I was furious I just took umbrage, thinking it might have been sent by somebody who knew me."

The pills are claimed to produce energy which the body uses in burning fat.

Mrs Norcup, 63, a retired customer services adviser, contacted the Evening Advertiser after her daughter, Amanda, said she knew of another woman who had received a similar mailing.

Mrs Norcup said: "We realised that what had been sent to us really wasn't a newspaper clipp-ing at all, but a put-up job.

"Some people might be taken in by things like this but I'm a bit streetwise.

"I would say to anybody else receiving one that they should just bin it."

Mrs Norcup is not the only dissatisfied recipient of a mailshot for the pills.

Last month, the Advertising Standards Agency watchdog ordered the firm behind the pills to stop sending the fake news-paper clippings after a series of complaints from the public and trading standards departments.

Complainants said that the message was offensive and masqueraded as a personal recommendation from a friend, and they also challenged the effectiveness of the pills.

The makers of the pills, Health Laboratories of North America International Ltd, failed to respond to the ASA.

A search of the internet reveals that similar marketing strategies have been used for the pills in the United States.

The firm is also accused of bombarding people with internet "spam" junk mail.

And people who have bought the pills report that they do not work.

Company spokeswoman Michelle Hunter admitted to the Evening Advertiser that the adverts posted out were not real newspaper clippings but denied that they were designed to look as if a friend had sent them.

She also insisted the pills were effective.

But Linda Webb, chief nutri-tionist for Swindon and Marl-borough NHS Trust, said exercise and sensible eating were the only ways to lose weight.

She added: "To lose weight, more energy must be going out than is going in the form of food."

Robert Taylour, Swindon Coun-cil's environmental services group leader, said: "The most insidious aspect is a hand-written note which members of the public could infer is from a friend."

"As to whether the product itself works, I think one is dubious about any product which suggests it can help you lose weight outside a strictly-controlled diet."