As they strive to keep up, officials claim that fake Covid-19 testing facilities put customers at risk.
While some privately owned websites provide accurate, speedy, and dependable results, others are more weed-like.
Bad actors were attracted by the high demand and limited supply, and some government officials are struggling to maintain oversight amidst the growth. And they are raising the alarm that desperate patients may be putting their health, wallets, and personal information in danger by going to the pop-up industry’s occasionally improvised tents.
The COVID-19 Testing Toolkit, which offers advice to employers and others, is led by Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “These conditions change so rapidly,” she added. It’s not surprising that the circumstances were ideal for swindling consumers and obtaining false test results.
Consumers seeking testing may believe all testing facilities are the same, but they are not. This is true whether the consumer is wanting a quick antigen test, which offers findings in under an hour, or a polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, test, which often takes longer but is more accurate. Unfortunately, it’s not always simple to distinguish between excellent and terrible.
According to Dr. Eve Bloomgarden, co-founder of the advocacy group Illinois Medical Professionals Action Collaborative Team, customers at testing facilities in the Chicago area has run into staff members who aren’t wearing masks or gloves or who have requested a credit card number or Social Security number before administering a test.
Consumers who use fake testing sites run the danger of identity theft, erroneous or missing test results, and financial losses if they have to pay for the tests, which are normally provided at no cost to the user.
State officials “are aware of complaints for multiple testing locations across the state,” according to Melaney Arnold, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Public Health, and are looking into them. If consumers have concerns about fraud or criminal conduct at testing sites, she advised them to get in touch with Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office.
According to James Garrow, director of communications for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, workers at a sidewalk Covid-19 testing tent in Philadelphia misrepresented their affiliation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. However, FEMA informed the department that at the time, it was not sponsoring any testing facilities in the city.
According to Garrow, “At the moment, there are no quick indicators to assist people to determine if a site is authentic or not.” We are looking into the possibility of offering a placard to show that a site is legal because of this.
In some areas of Manhattan, it might be challenging to go down a street without encountering at least one or two pop-up shops. People waited in chilly lines to get swabbed in the weeks before the holidays. Others are operating out of what appear to be rental vans, while several vans and tents are plainly tagged with firm names.
The locations were also all throughout Los Angeles. Testing facilities managed by the same company were grouped together in some locations and were conveniently close to one another. An employee at a Crestview Clinical Laboratory location on Wilshire Boulevard who declined to provide her name to a reporter said that during the pre-holiday rush, she also offered a VIP service for customers who were ready to pay extra for speedy PCR tests.
Public health professionals express their hope that consumers won’t be discouraged from being tested due to doubts about the validity of a mobile test site.
Testing outside offers benefits as well.
Denis Nash, a professor of epidemiology at the City University of New York, remarked that he would pick the outside testing site if given the option to choose between two possibilities during a surge that was taking place. And over both of those, I would prefer economical home testing.
More testing is generally preferable to less.
I normally don’t care why people are testing, Nash said. If they’re taking steps to make a party safer, that’s great. But I do worry if access is unjust.
Some testing operators are more prevalent in areas where residents are more likely to have health insurance than in areas where they are more likely to lack it. A map of testing locations for LabQ, a business that provides mobile Covid-19 testing in the New York City region, for instance, displays dozens of places in Manhattan but only a few in the Bronx.
Although city and state health officials keep strong regulatory eyes on the labs that perform Covid-19 testing, they frequently do not regulate the site owners that administer the tests, which is one flaw in the system.
According to Garrow, the only legal prerequisite for Covid-19 testing facilities in Philadelphia is that the lab they utilize holds a state health department license. Demonstrating that it complies with the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments, a set of regulatory criteria. For lab testing accuracy, dependability, and timeliness, CLIA establishes criteria.
According to Andy Owen, deputy media relations director for the Maryland Department of Health, Covid-19 testing facilities in Maryland require a CLIA “waiver” from the federal government to conduct the tests.
In general, CLIA licenses are required for labs in the US, and waivers are typically needed for point-of-care testing.
Attorney General of Maryland Brian Frosh released a press release in December 2020 alerting the public to unlawful Covid-19 testing operations that might gather people’s personally identifying information and use it to steal their identities.
Aleithea Warmack, deputy director of communications for the attorney general’s consumer protection division, reports that the government hasn’t received any complaints since then regarding pop-up testing websites.
According to Kristine Grow, a representative for AHIP, a trade association for health plans, a test site operator seeking payment from a health plan for administering a Covid-19 test generally needs to have a national provider identifier, which comes from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
While requesting health insurance details from test participants is a common practice, asking for credit card data is not. A Covid-19 test is often reimbursed by insurance or by the government for those without insurance, so individual customers don’t have to pay for it out of pocket. But if the test isn’t prescribed by their physician, it’s a rush job, or it’s done by an out-of-network practitioner, some patients get charged, and “we do continue to see price gouging occur.”
Checking listings of the testing providers that states and cities collaborate with or support is one way to find a reliable testing provider. However, according to Bloomgarden, many trustworthy testing operators are not listed in the official databases.
The CEO of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, Scott Becker, claimed that certain independent test site operators are “very qualified.” Becker visited a drive-through testing location in his Montgomery County, Maryland, neighborhood. He was informed of the testing facility’s identity by the test operator, and the facility’s name appeared on the results.
They’re not all terrible, said Becker. Just getting Joe Consumer to understand it is challenging.
Even trustworthy test operators might not be able to keep their pledges when demand for Covid-19 testing rises.
In December, Theo Servedio and a small group of other individuals queued up at the sliding door of a LabQ mobile testing van close to Columbia University in New York. The 19-year-old sophomore wanted to go to a fraternity party but decided to get tested first because of the rise in Covid cases. The PCR tests would be completed in 24 hours, according to a notice at the registration desk.
They’re both free, but the school’s testing turnaround time in the past has been between 48 and 72 hours, according to Servedio.
In 24 hours, he received his results. But not everyone was as fortunate. According to a warning letter sent to LabQ by New York Attorney General Letitia James in December, some consumers reportedly had to wait more than 96 hours for their Covid-19 test results, despite the company’s claim of a 48-hour turnaround. Several Covid-19 test businesses, including LabQ, were informed of the concerns in late December and early January.
The best way to avoid purchasing bogus COVID tests online
The media is rife with complaints of low inventories of at-home test kits and pictures of lengthy queues at physical COVID testing locations. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, unapproved and phoney at-home testing kits are increasingly being sold online as opportunistic con artists take advantage of the increase in demand.
In addition to being a waste of money, using these bogus items puts you at greater risk of unintentionally transmitting COVID-19 or receiving the wrong care. So, if you’re purchasing COVID test kits and associated goods online:
- Make sure the test you’re purchasing has FDA approval. Before making a purchase, locate the tests that are approved for use at home by consulting the FDA’s lists of molecular diagnostic tests and antigen diagnostic tests. “Emergency Use Authorization” (EUA)
Check out a seller before making a purchase, especially if you’re purchasing from an unfamiliar website. Look up the name of the website, business, or seller online along with the phrases “scam,” “complaint,” or “review.”
Various websites’ online reviews can be compared. Reading customer evaluations on various retail or shopping comparison websites can give you a decent idea of a business, a product, or a service. Consider the review’s genesis. Where is this review coming from, you might ask? Is it coming from a professional group or individual clients?
Use a credit card to pay. Contact your credit card company to dispute the charge if you were charged for an order that you never received or for a product that was not as described.
The FTC advises against the following when purchasing a COVID-19 test kit online:
Check the FDA’s listings of approved molecular and antigen diagnostic tests to ensure the test you’re purchasing has been approved by the FDA. If you are unable to locate the test’s name, it has not been approved for use in the United States.
Before making a purchase, research the seller, especially if it’s from a site you’re unfamiliar with. Search online using the name of the website, business, or seller and the words “scam,” “complaint,” or “review” to see if anything alarming comes up.
Various websites’ online reviews can be compared.
- Use a credit card to pay. (If you’re charged for an order you never received or for a product that isn’t as described, you can dispute the transaction by contacting your credit card issuer.)
- Federal authorities are cautioning Americans against purchasing bogus testing kits online because COVID-19 test kits, which are in great demand, are in low supply.
- Since before the holidays, it has been difficult to acquire quick at-home test kits in stores. These tests are available over the counter and produce results in just a few minutes.
- In some areas of California, people who are having trouble getting appointments and who are trying to avoid the lengthy waits at overcrowded testing facilities have been going to pharmacies in search of at-home kits, only to discover that the shelves are empty.
- To locate testing kits, some desperate customers are going to the internet, where they are occasionally being resold at a premium.
- Authorities said it’s more troubling that some people are peddling phoney at-home testing kits that are legal in the US.
- As opportunistic con artists take advantage of the surge in demand, it is not surprising that fraudulent and illegal at-home testing kits are appearing online, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission warned in a notice last week.
- The FTC continued, “Using these fake things is not just a waste of money; it also increases your risk of accidentally spreading COVID-19 or not getting the right care.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Children should pay particular attention to this. For at least an hour before to the oral rinse and gargle test, avoid eating, drinking (including water), chewing gum, brushing your teeth, using a vaporizer, and smoking. This can skew the findings of your tests.
Inform Google about the website.
- Visit the page for the SafeBrowsing Report.
- Enter the website’s URL.
- Fill out the CAPTCHA.
- Put a justification in your report (optional).
- To submit a report, click.
- companyforyouthsome.com.
- coolerones.com.
- enjoyhop.com.
- foryouthsome.com.
- futurgift.com.
- innotvgood.com.
- iwishgoods.com.
- kiaasc.com.
How to file a complaint:
- Take a snapshot of the allegedly offending website showing the URL in full view.
- File a complaint at the nearest police station, including the aforementioned papers and a detailed account of the incident.
When someone tries to deceive you into revealing personal information online, that is a phishing attack.
