Criminals are trying to make money from the US immunization pressures against COVID-19 by selling counterfeits of government-issued ‘vaccination cards “ showing that people have been vaccinated.
Hundreds of fraudsters sell blank or counterfeit versions of the cards through e-commerce sites, including eBay, Etsy, and Shopify, while also posting ads for the counterfeits on Facebook, according to Saoud Khalifah, CEO of Fakespot, which uses artificial intelligence to resolve online shopping scams. tracks. . And with names like blankcovidcard.com, such sellers are hardly discreet.
“In January, we started noticing Shopify stores selling fake vaccination cards, which was really interesting because it introduced a new dynamic in society where people can fake immunity and replace it with a fake card,” Khalifah told CBS MoneyWatch. “It is a new concept that we have not seen before.”
Fakespot has identified hundreds of different sellers that have surfaced since the start of the year, and the company estimates they’ve stolen thousands of fake data in the past three months. Online shopping sites have banned some bad actors who, according to Khalifah, often reappear and sell fake cards under different names.
Thanks to Fakespot
The low-tech vaccine records are easy to replicate. The 4-by-3-inch, double sided paper cards bear the logo of the federal centers for disease control and prevention in black and white, along with the cardholder’s name and date of birth. They also note the medicinator, lot number, and date and location of the vaccine administered. The information is annotated with a pen or on a printed sticker.
A merchant whose Shopify store no longer exists sold a pack of four blank vaccination cards for $ 80.
Prosecutors are calling for action
Shopify, a platform that allows retailers to create ecommerce sites, said it was quick to act against users of its technology trying to sell fraudulently vaccine cardsHawking fake cards violate company policy, the company told CBS MoneyWatch, noting that it has been monitoring its platform for such schemes since February.
The National Association of Attorneys General last week called on eBay, Shopify and Twitter to stop people from selling or advertising fake CDC vaccine cards on their platforms. To date, Shopify has closed three stores that sell fake or blank vaccination cards or fraudulent vaccine stamps.
“If our search identifies a potentially banned product, our team will quickly review the store and product and take appropriate action,” Vivek Narayanadas, Shopify’s vice president of legal affairs, wrote in a letter to the National Association of Attorneys General.
“Any of the stores we identified for violating our policy were promptly acted upon,” Narayanadas said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch.
Etsy also confirmed that the sale of fake vaccination cards violates the site’s rules and will remove any posts promoting the fake records. EBay said it will block or promptly remove items in its marketplace that make false health claims, “including vaccine ID cards or similar items that could be used to falsely represent that a person has received the vaccine.”
A Twitter spokesperson said it has stepped up efforts to block misinformation and removed tweets and accounts that violate its misleading information policy. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fakespot’s Khalifah suspects that some buyers of the fake cards are “anti-vaxxers” who have no intention of getting vaccinated, but want all the access a card can afford them.
Airlines and the travel industry, for example, are considering whether they need a vaccination certificate for travel. Some countries, including Mexico, require visitors to submit negative COVID-19 tests to participate. According to some experts, the evidence of vaccination could be the following.
Individuals who are not yet a candidate for the vaccine, or who cannot make an appointment, can also forge a blank card to make it look like they got one dose of the vaccine and need a second dose, causing them to cut lines.
“You can buy little books with fake stamps so you can bypass the whole system that the government has created,” Khalifah said.
Tools designed to digitize paper records aim to combat this type of fraud by verifying individuals’ records and storing them in secure online vaults.
“That would make forging physical papers difficult, but there will still be hackers who can hijack other people’s identities, so it won’t be bulletproof,” Khalifah said.
red flags
VaxYes, a tool that converts the paper cards into digital vaccine certificates, allows individuals to go through multiple rounds of security checks to ensure their data is authentic. The company also uses artificial intelligence and trained medical professionals to scan the cards for irregularities that indicate they may be counterfeit.
“We get thousands of cards and now everyone knows them, so we ask if there are any discrepancies compared to other cards,” Mohamad Gaber, CEO of VaxYes, told CBS MoneyWatch.
Gaber said less than 2% of the cards VaxYes reviewed were “questionable” or downright inauthentic. Cards that do not list the batch number of a vaccine or bear handwritten batch numbers instead of printed stickers raise red flags.
“A lot of people have created these maps because they are very easy to recreate. We’ve seen some versions of maps that people have downloaded and filled in without permission,” he said.
Against the law
Selling fake vaccination cards violates federal laws that prohibit the unauthorized use of any official government agency’s seal, including the one used by the CDC, the FBI said in a statement last month.
The FBI also warned people against participating in related scams that could constitute a crime. “If you didn’t get the vaccine, don’t buy fake vaccination cards, make your own vaccination cards, or fill out blank vaccination cards with false information,” the Bureau said. By misrepresenting yourself as vaccinated when entering schools, public transportation, workplaces, gyms, or places of worship, you put yourself and others around you at risk of contracting COVID-19. “
The fraudulent use of an official US government seal is a felony punishable by a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Individuals who falsify a vaccination card to travel, return to work, or attend events may also face criminal charges for knowingly risking other people to get COVID-19.
“If I’ve never been vaccinated and have a high risk of passing on COVID-19 and I’m in a public place, and it turns out I’m ‘patient zero’ and I’ve made other people sick – or someone has died – then I could do that. be accused of some form of criminally negligent or reckless murder, “said Randy Zelin, a criminal defense attorney at Wilk Auslander. and I went ahead and did it anyway. “