Overnight shipping within the US tacked on another $25, with a guarantee that the doses would be “ice packed.” (Both vaccines require ultra-cold storage for long periods, which has complicated distribution even for health authorities.) More damningly, the seller requested payment in the form of an iTunes gift card-a hallmark of scam deals-before finally agreeing to PayPal. One seller found in a Telegram channel called Corona Virus Vaccines claimed to be based in Richmond, Virginia, and offered the Pfizer vaccine for $150 a vial. “You’d better contact with someone who imported medical products before, or though we send to you, the package would be held by your custom, and you will face high penalty,” the vaccine peddler wrote. The deal only collapsed when the researcher conceded that they had no prior experience importing drugs. At one point, the seller searched on LinkedIn for the researcher, whose profile clearly states that they live in the United States. The conversation eventually moved to email, where the rep provided documentation about the vaccine’s efficacy.

The Hongyu representative sent a picture of a Sinovac vaccine box as proof. The researchers reached out and asked if Hongyu was selling the vaccine. A page identifying itself as Hongyu Medical made contact even easier by including a Facebook Messenger link in a post on January 12. Many of those posts did, however, include international phone numbers for more information. The researchers observed several posts in coronavirus-related Facebook groups that referenced Covid-19 vaccines without explicitly offering them for sale. “Early in January I started noticing on these pages that posts by what I would call questionable Facebook accounts were appearing, pushing these questionable vaccines from China.” “What you find is that these questionable masks, PPE, treatments, tests are being sold on these Facebook group pages that actually act as marketplaces for the sale and buying of questionable Covid-19 products,” says Eric Feinberg, vice president for content moderation at CSW.

While similar scams had previously surged on the dark web, their presence on mainstream social networks with billions of users exposes a much wider population to potential harm. The researchers say they looked for but did not find comparable activity on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

The offers ranged from Facebook page operators willing to ship Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine-which is not authorized for use in the United States-from China, to apparent scammers on Telegram claiming to have access to Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca’s vaccines. Now, as desperation builds for access to a limited vaccine supply, internet charlatans have escalated in kind, offering shipments of doses in Facebook groups and Telegram chats.Īccording to a new report from internet safety nonprofits Digital Citizens Alliance and the Coalition for a Safer Web, researchers had no trouble finding vendors with claims of vaccines ready to ship. Scammers have flooded Facebook and other social media platforms with Covid-19 scams for almost as long as the disease has had a name.

Telegram messenger scams