BBB Cautions of Swine Flu Scams

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) has alerted consumers to be watchful for fake mails and sites trying to exploit the swine flu pandemic and the increasing public anxiety about it.

President of BBB, Tom Bartholomy, stated that scammers are thriving as they use latest headlines as traps to catch innocent users, as per the news published by Salisburypost.com on November 5, 2009.

Tom also said that in view of the worldwide fear created by this flu virus, scammers have got a huge panorama of targets.

As recently, people have been extremely worried about swine flu and scammers are able to sense this uneasiness and see a chance to loot their cash.

BBB informed that attackers are bombarding inboxes with e-mails about selling herbal medication, spam, forged remedies and 'survival kits' to frenzied and naive users. Another lot of products for sale include masks, shampoos, gels, H1N1-curing sprays, body washes, gels, teas, herbal extracts, air systems and other fake products.

Though, none of these products have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); some of them might even be injurious to health. In addition, BBB warns users to ignore mails of swine flu and update their security systems and spam filters to prevent the bogus mails.

Also, Dr. Bruce Dixon of the Allegheny County Health Department (Pennsylvania, US) closely examined some of the goods on the list and declared that it may be good to shampoo hair so that they remain clean, but surely H1N1 does not come from hair, reported KDKA on November 6, 2009.

The FDA also found that fraudulent versions of the drug Tamiflu, a cure for H1N1, were being sold online. Shockingly, officials reported that one of the samples was actually made of Tylenol and talcum powder.

BBB has advised not to buy goods presently being sold online that falsely claim that they can defend against or treat H1N1 virus. Further, they added not to open swine flu related mails or to click any unfamiliar attachments that could install spyware and steal private details.

Related article: BBA Outlines Steps To Ward Off Online Fraud

» SPAMfighter News - 11/19/2009