9 Investigates: Many who don’t want shot buying fake COVID-19 vaccine cards

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Selling fake vaccination cards has become a booming business -- supported by people who don’t want to get the shot.

At some point, it’s possible you may need to show proof that you’ve been vaccinated in order to fly certain places or take a cruise, so people who don’t necessarily want the vaccine may still want the card.

WFTV spoke with pharmacist Savannah Sparks who spends time on social media trying to fight disinformation about COVID-19.

“All I want is for people to be held accountable, and in a big way,” she said.

Savannah said she advocates for evidence-based medicine and uses Tik Tok to do it because it’s predominately for younger people.

Savannah said it was TikTok where she started seeing videos of people offering fake COVID vaccine cards. She said some of the posts would read, “selling blank covid vaccine cards DM me.”

“Do you really think it’s smart to not only advertise that you not only forge medical documents but also have the intent to distribute them?” she said.

Savannah started digging, found out who was behind the videos and exposed them.

One man was in Tampa Florida.

WFTV reported that his company found out about the allegations and terminated him.

Brian Linder of Check Point Research told WFTV that the danger isn’t just for the sellers.

“You may be able to buy a fake vaccine card or a negative test to meet a need, but you’re really putting your identity at risk of doing that,” he said.

Linder said cyber criminals on the dark web are capitalizing on the vaccine card scam because people share their personal info when they order one.

Sparks said she isn’t going to stop warning people.

“When you threaten public health, you know that that’s, that’s not something that I take lightly, and I’m not going to sit idly by and just say, ‘Please don’t do this,’” she said.

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