MADISON – Demonstrating again that there is no honor among scam artists, credit unions are being urged to warn their members about Internet-based schemes related to Ebola.
The Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) has issued a caution about any “fundraising” or “aid” requests that come online.
“Past experience tells us that during periods of uncertainty or fear, con artists often times will attempt to make a quick score at the expense of investors,” said Patricia Struck, administrator of DFI’s Division of Securities. “Investors should be very wary of any unsolicited Ebola-related investment opportunities, especially those received via the Internet.”
Struck said an analysis of Internet domain names by the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), of which DFI is a member, found nearly 1,200 domains with “Ebola” in their name have been registered with top-level domains, such as .com, .net, .org since April.
About 1,000 of those registrations have occurred since July, as awareness of the crisis spread. Of these sites, 184 were identified by NASAA’s Internet Fraud Investigations project group as suspicious.
Most of the domain names are “parked” and have no content, indicating that either someone has purchased the domain hoping to resell it, or the content is not ready yet, Struck said.
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