When DePuy announced a product recall for their metal hip replacement implants last August, the entire American population was alarmed. Unlike the usual product recalls that Americans see on primetime news, a [1] recall about hip replacement devices will not be solved by throwing a bottle of pills in the trash.

DePuy Orthopedics recalled their “metal on metal” hip replacement implants because of their high failure rate.   DePuy’s ASR Hip Resurfacing System fails in about 12% of the recipients and the ASR XL Acetabular System fails in about 13% of patients. But what makes this news very alarming is that DePuy reported to have sold about 93,000 implants in the past year, which means that over 11,000 hip implant recipients will be having problems from the devices.

If you have had a hip replacement surgery in the last two years and found out that you received a DePuy hip replacement implant, you can file a liability lawsuit against DePuy. However, there is something you need to know first.

After the recall of the defective hip implants, hundreds of new websites flooded the internet targeted at patients affected by the DePuy hip implants and who are seeking for online legal advice. These websites appear to be sponsored or affiliated by a certain law firm, promising that the [2] information you give them will be given to a lawyer for a case review. However, these websites are not affiliated with any law firm, and were actually created and run by a marketing company.

These websites will ask for your name, phone numbers, home address, email address as well as some information about your condition for a “complimentary case review”. But if you thoroughly read the fine print, these websites are going to use your personal information for marketing and promotional purposes.

Submitting personal and contact information to this sites means agreeing to receive “future advertisements” from the website, which means spam. When the site says, “your case will be reviewed by more than one lawyer or law firm”, it actually means your information will be sold to as many law firms as possible.

A situation like yours demands genuine legal advice, so be careful in giving away your personal information online.  Look for a specific name of a lawyer or a law firm in the website, and be sure to read the fine print. There are a lot of hocus pocus going on out there, so protect yourself from these websites.

If you are a victim and need assistance on the lawsuit, visit the [3] DePuy Lawsuit Information Center.