“Scammers are leveraging the COVID-19 pandemic to steal your money, your personal information, or both. Don’t let them,” the FBI said last week.
From fake cures to bogus test kits, con artists are peddling a variety of scams to capitalize on the coronavirus scare.
One man recently told his 2.4 million Instagram followers he had developed a "cure" for the disease.
"This is the cure right here going into mass production," Keith Middlebrook, 53, told his followers as he held up syringe. "This is going to save the world!"
He also showed off pills that claimed to be a preventative, which led him to being arrested for fraud by the FBI.
The FBI has also warned that thousands of Americans are getting bogus robocalls purporting to offer free testing kits that can be delivered overnight.
A Florida retiree said two scammers knocked on his door offering a Coronavirus test for $300.
"It's a scam and I knew it was a scam," he told Inside Edition. "I'm 72, but wasn't born yesterday."
Inside Edition ordered 30 so-called home testing kits from online ads, but they never arrived.
"It's obviously a scam," said North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein. He is one of many officials vowing to shut down anyone selling unapproved test kits. "It is wrong to exploit people's desperation to make a quick buck.
In a notice posted last week, the FBI said fraudsters are also using mass email scams, including fake messages from the Centers for Disease Control and phishing schemes.
“Scammers are leveraging the COVID-19 pandemic to steal your money, your personal information, or both. Don’t let them,” the notice said. “Protect yourself and do your research before clicking on links purporting to provide information on the virus."
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