Online  scammers are taking their game to another level, seeking to take advantage of those who have purchased their medications from an online pharmacy.

The Food and Drug Administration warned last week that scammer’s posing as FDA agents have been calling online pharmacy customers, demanding that they pay specified fines for purchasing their drugs online or over the phone.

According to the FDA

The criminals call the victims — who in most cases previously purchased drugs over the Internet or via “telepharmacies” — and identify themselves as FDA special agents or other law enforcement officials. The criminals inform the victims that purchasing drugs over the Internet or the telephone is illegal, and that law enforcement action will be pursued unless a fine or fee ranging from $100 to $250,000 is paid. Victims often also have fraudulent transactions placed against their credit cards.

The criminals always request the money be sent by wire transfer to a designated location, usually in the Dominican Republic. If victims refuse to send money, they are often threatened with a search of their property, arrest, deportation, physical harm, and or incarceration.

Anybody that gets a call simular to this should refuse the demand and call the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations Metro Washington Field Office at (800) 521-5783 to report the crime.

Remember, this is the reason you should never order meds from spam pharmacies that are unproven and malicious. If you need to order medications online, you should order them from safe verified pharmacies, that will give you quality medication and keep your information safe.

Tags: scamwatch

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 8:06 pm and is filed under online pharmacy scams, pharmacy spam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.