County sheriff's office warns residents of potential COVID-19 vaccine scams

Now that the COVID-19 vaccine is beginning to be distributed, Sgt. Cody Windbigler of the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Office is warning county residents to be on the lookout for possible scams.

According to Windbigler there have not been any COVID vaccine scams in the area so far, but by preemptively preparing citizens he hopes it can help reduce the risk of them occurring locally.

"We're hoping that by getting information out beforehand that it will curb a problem before it starts," Windbigler said.

Some signs of potential COVID-19 vaccine scams include being asked to pay out of pocket to receive the vaccine, being asked to pay to be added to a waiting list or gain early access, marketers offering to sell or ship doses of the vaccine at a cost and advertisements for vaccines through social media, email, telephone calls, online or from unsolicited or unknown sources.

"I think the biggest thing is just if it's too good to be true, it probably is," Windbigler said, "and just check your sources. Don't give out information without verifying who it is that's calling you. If they say they're calling you from, you know, your local bank, hang up and call your local bank and say 'I just received a phone call, was this from you?' They'll be able to verify that. Don't just accept at face value that they are who they say."

Depending on how much information a scammer gets from a victim, there are a number of things they can do with that info, according to Windbigler.

"It depends on how much information they get, and what type of criminal element they are," Windbigler said, "but there are places on the dark web that they can go, and they will sell that information, social security numbers, checking account members, date of births, that type of thing. People that buy that will use that to data mine their information from the internet. Try to gain access to passwords for emails, for checking accounts. Just with somebody's date of birth and social security number people can try to open up checking accounts, they can try to incur debt off of that person's name just by trying to open up fictitious accounts with that information."

Senior citizens tend to be targeted more by scams, but Windbigler said it can happen to anyone of any age.

"That does not hold true to everybody," Windbigler said. "We certainly get all different age groups that come in that have been successfully scammed, or at least made it to the point where they came into the sheriff's office inquiring whether we believe a scam or not. But more often than not, it's probably our elderly population, unfortunately."

Windbigler recommends keeping up with updates on vaccine distributions from the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center on social media at facebook.com/CapeCoHealth/, or their website cgcohealthdept.com/, as well in order to avoid being scammed.

"I would ask them to go to those sites to find information about when vaccines are going to be available and where they'll be available," Windbigler said.

If you believe you've been the victim of a COVID-19 scam, it's recommended you report it to the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) hotline by calling (800) HHS-TIPS or visiting tips.hhs.gov, the FBI hotline by calling (800) CALL-FBI or visiting ic3.gov or the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) hotline by calling (800) MEDICARE. In addition you can also contact the sheriff's office at (573) 243-3551.

"They can always contact us first," Windbigler said, "and then we can redirect them if necessary."