{"id":5594,"date":"2023-12-19T22:03:03","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T04:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5594"},"modified":"2023-12-19T22:03:07","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T04:03:07","slug":"scammers-are-tricking-anti-vaxxers-into-buying-bogus-medical-documents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/12\/19\/scammers-are-tricking-anti-vaxxers-into-buying-bogus-medical-documents\/","title":{"rendered":"Scammers Are Tricking Anti-Vaxxers Into Buying Bogus Medical Documents"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/telegram-covid-19-vaccination-fakes\/\">Wired<\/a> <strong>On Telegram, scammers are impersonating doctors to sell fake Covid-19 vaccination certificates and other products, showing how criminals are taking advantage of conspiracy theories.<\/strong> Kristina Collins didn\u2019t know her photo was being used on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/tag\/telegram\/\">Telegram<\/a>. Over the past few months, an Instagram picture of Collins, a Texas-based\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lovefoy.com\/pages\/meet-dr-collins\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">doctor and dermatologist<\/a>, has been used by scammers on the chat app to try to persuade people to buy false proof that they have been vaccinated against Covid-19 and other diseases. \u201cThe last thing you want as a physician is for your identity to be used to promote misinformation,\u201d Collins tells WIRED, adding that many doctors use social media specifically to make sure people have access to accurate health information. \u201cWhen people are able to take that likeness and use it for bad purposes, whether it\u2019s fraud, whether it\u2019s misinformation, I think it\u2019s really scary.\u201d The Telegram channel impersonating Collins wasn\u2019t alone. Researchers at Logically, a UK-based disinformation detection company, have uncovered a network of around 60 Telegram channels selling Covid-19 vaccination certificates and other proof of vaccination documents, and claiming to sell various medicines. In 25 of the channels, administrators used a \u201cDr.\u201d prefix in their username, with 13 of the channels using the real-world names and\/or photographs of legitimate medical professionals.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wired On Telegram, scammers are impersonating doctors to sell fake Covid-19 vaccination certificates and other products, showing how criminals are taking advantage of conspiracy theories. Kristina Collins didn\u2019t know her photo was being used on\u00a0Telegram. Over the past few months, an Instagram picture of Collins, a Texas-based\u00a0doctor and dermatologist, has been used by scammers on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misinformation-disinformation-and-conspiracy-theories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5594"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5595,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5594\/revisions\/5595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}