Fake shot cards are the latest online scam

SAN FRANCISCO — On Etsy, eBay, Facebook and Twitter, little rectangular slips of paper started showing up for sale in late January. Printed on card stock, they measured 3-by-4 inches and featured crisp black lettering. Sellers listed them for $20 to $60 each, with a discount on bundles of three or more. Laminated ones cost extra.

All were forgeries or falsified copies of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccination cards given to people who have been inoculated against COVID-19 in the United States.

“We found hundreds of online stores selling the cards. Potentially thousands were sold,” said Saoud Khalifah, the founder of FakeSpot, which offers tools to detect fake listings and reviews online

Online stores offering counterfeit or stolen vaccine cards have mushroomed in recent weeks, Khalifah said. The efforts are far from hidden, with Facebook pages named “vax-cards” and eBay listings with “blank vaccine cards” hawking the items.

Selling fake vaccination cards could break federal laws that forbid copying the CDC logo, legal experts said. If the cards were stolen and filled out with false numbers and dates, they could also violate identity theft laws, they said.

But profiteers have pressed ahead as demand for the cards has grown from anti-vaccine activists and other groups. Airlines and other companies have recently said they may require proof of COVID-19 immunization so that people can safely travel or attend events.

The CDC said it was “aware of cases of fraud regarding counterfeit COVID-19 vaccine cards.” It asked people not to share images of their personal information or vaccine cards on social media.