BOSTON — At some point, it’s possible you may need to show proof that you’ve been vaccinated in order to fly certain places or take a cruise, so people who don’t necessarily want the vaccine may still want the card.
Fake vaccination cards have been spotted on social media, despite calls from the Attorney General in Massachusetts and other states across the country, for sites to crackdown on the practice.
Boston 25 News’ sister station WFTV spoke with pharmacist Savannah Sparks who spends time on social media trying to fight disinformation about COVID-19.
“All I want is for people to be held accountable, and in a big way,” she said.
Savannah said she advocates for evidence-based medicine and uses TikTok to do it because it’s predominately for younger people.
Sparks said it was TikTok where she started seeing videos of people offering fake COVID vaccine cards. She said some of the posts would read, “selling blank COVID vaccine cards DM me.”
“Do you really think it’s smart to not only advertise that you not only forge medical documents but also have the intent to distribute them?” Sparks said.
Sparks said she started digging, found out who was behind the videos and exposed them.
Brian Linder, of Check Point Research, said the danger isn’t just for the sellers.
“You may be able to buy a fake vaccine card or a negative test to meet a need, but you’re really putting your identity at risk of doing that,” he said.
Linder said cyber criminals on the dark web are capitalizing on the vaccine card scam because people share their personal info when they order one.
“For those people that don’t want to get the vaccine, don’t give in to the temptation,” Linder advised.
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