BATON ROUGE, La. - Attorney General Jeff Landry issued a warning to Louisiana residents Thursday, April 1, about fake COVID vaccine cards being sold online.
Landry has joined 44 other attorneys general in urging Twitter, eBay, and Shopify to immediately take action in preventing marketing and selling bogus COVID vaccine cards that contain the CDC’s logo on them.
“The use of your platform to disseminate the deceptive marketing and sales of fake vaccine cards is a threat to residents of our states,” said Landry and his colleagues in letters to the big tech giants. “As a result, we are asking you to take immediate action to prevent your platform from being used as a vehicle to commit these fraudulent and deceptive acts that harm our communities.”
Legitimate vaccination cards are given when a person receives the vaccine. People who buy fake cards can have their own information added to the card or add it in themselves, so it appears they have been vaccinated when they have not.
“The false and deceptive marketing and sales of fake COVID vaccine cards threatens the health of our communities, slows progress in getting our residents protected from the virus, and is a violation of the laws of many states,” Landry added.
Landry and the other attorneys general made the following requests of Twitter, eBay, and Shopify:
Monitor their platforms for ads or links marketing or selling, or otherwise indicating the availability of, blank or fraudulently completed vaccine cards
Promptly take down ads or links identified through that monitoring
Preserve records - such as the content, username, and actual user identity - pertaining to any such ads or links