How can I report a scam site that might kill people?

KennyPowers

KennyPowers

Motherfucking fastball
Jul 2, 2010
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Guys, I need your help. I found a site impersonating the Red Cross and selling fake snake anti-venom. For those of you that don't know, anti-venom is used to cure individuals bitten by poisonous snakes. If instead of getting real anti-venom they get a placebo, they die before anyone can figure out that the antidote didn't work. Here's the site:

Snake-Antivenin.com | SNAKE ANTIVENOM STORE BY RED CROSS

Their prices are 5% of market prices which is economically impossible:

BTG sells CroFab for as much as $2,700 per 1-gram vial, although Shands pharmacists say hospitals usually pay about 80 percent of that price.
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- Snakebite treatment often complicated, costly | Gainesville.com

And they're also obviously not affiliated with the Red Cross.

Thus far I reported them to the Red Cross, but was wondering what else I could do if nonprofit bureaucracy fails.

Typically I wouldn't give a shit, however considering there's people out there - likely in third world countries - ordering off of this site and administering this to patients, I thought that I'd at least spend an hour trying to help.

Any and all input is appreciated. Thanks for your help!
 


Are you sure it's fake? Let's test this on CEO Sam. Anyone got a snake to volunteer?









It looks like they might be in Belgium. Perhaps there's an authority over there you can contact. Maybe report them to Paypal, too.
 
You're not honestly "short bus" enough to think that organizations that perform medical procedures that involve snake venom don't know where to order the authentic product are you???? LOL! Seriously.
 
"All our products are sent as gifts to allow worldwide shipping without import tax "

Sorry but you'd need to be completely retarded to order from that site. It's the Darwin Award principal at work (also by proxy).
 
tmedocianis said:
You're not honestly "short bus" enough to think that organizations that perform medical procedures that involve snake venom don't know where to order the authentic product are you???? LOL! Seriously.
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You would be surprised.

OP try these 2, the national center for disaster fraud:

Scams | American Red Cross

If you see or hear about any instances of people misusing the Red Cross name or logo to collect funds on behalf of Hurricane Sandy victims, or any other types of disaster-related fraud, please call the National Center for Disaster Fraud (a program under the U.S. Department of Justice), toll-free, at (866) 720-5721, or email the NCDF at disaster@leo.gov. All calls and emails will be treated as confidential.
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and some program the red cross has with global compliance that's for internal complaints but they can probably kick things up to where they need to go.

American Red Cross Concern Connection Line

The ongoing success of American Red Cross depends on our employees and volunteers conducting business with integrity and in full compliance with regulations, legislation, and our own corporate operating policies and procedures. Ethical and compliant business behavior that reflects our corporate values is right for our employees and volunteers, right for our customers, right for our stakeholders, and right for our business. American Red Cross depends on you to safeguard our organization's reputation and protect us from financial and legal harm. If you have observed employee misconduct, speak up!

American Red Cross has provided this website to enable you to report your concern in a confidential and anonymous manner. This reporting program may be used for the report of a variety of ethics, integrity, and compliance issues. In submitting a report, you may remain anonymous or identify yourself and provide information as to how American Red Cross can contact you directly if additional details are desired. In either case, your information will be treated confidentially.

To submit a report, or to follow up on a report already submitted, please select from the links below. You will also find a link to American Red Cross's Code of Conduct. Your report will be handled promptly and confidentially as long as it is submitted in good faith.

American Red Cross strives to operate with the utmost integrity, and we thank you for coming forth to help protect our organization for the short and long term.
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DewChugr said:
Keep Calm.

You are very unlikely to die from a snake bite in the US, less than 10 people in the US die from snake bites in a year, bees are FAR more dangerous.
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Yes, but what if OP's parents travel to Zimbabwe, on a quest to find out why OP is a faggot, and decide to take some anti-venom with them just in case?
 
That site is totally legit. I've been buying my snake anti-venom from there for the last 5 years and I haven't been bitten by a snake yet.
 
If you've reported them to the Red Cross, I'm sure they'll deal with it. Report it to as many Red Cross emails you can find and I'm sure someone will reply back. They're not ones to let others fuck around with their branding and IP and will pursue fraudsters.
 
edward_b said:
Seems like a fair bit of activity on that site, and a surprising number of those questions I skimmed through are from clinics, and people whose lives would literally depend on this stuff being what it claims...

SNAKE-ANTIVENIN.COM QUESTIONS AND REPLIES | INFORMATION SNAKE ANTIVENOM SHOP BY RED CROSS
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According to the whois, they've been around for awhile. They're also ranked high for several terms, have a bunch of people commenting on their site, and are one of the few if not the only site that sells online.

I understand that a person of above average intelligence won't fall for this scam, however it does seem that some people are falling for it. I also wouldn't be surprised if intelligent people from developing countries fall for it.

With that said, thanks to everyone that offered help. Much appreciated. I reported the site to several sources and hope it goes offline soon.

As for everyone else that busted my balls, I found the ball-busting funny and appreciate the humor. Thanks.

P.s. Sorry for bumping the thread - just didn't want to come off as an ungrateful prick. I'll make sure not to bump anymore.
 
Just called up the business centre in Brussels they're using, they hadn't heard of them, but they're now gonna be finding out who it is that allowed them to register there, and will be involving Belgian police today.

Also just left a message on Dreamhost's answerphone and sent them an email.

Anyone saying people ordering deserve it, or if people are in the US, you're unlikely to die from a snake bite - that's probably largely due to the fact that people go to hospital when bitten by a venomous snake, which they may not if they think they have the antivenin. Also, they're based in Brussels, they're servicing the world, not just the US. Would any of us fall for it? Unlikely. Would at least one person most of us know fall for it? Probably.
 
You guys are acting dumb.

You can buy blood pressure, cancer, and AIDS medication online for "5% of market price" as well. It's rarely fake (then the customer would die and stop buying). It's just from a country that doesn't respect the patent rights of the developer or whatever.

Why do you think it costs $3,000 per 1-gram vial. If they substituted pure meth it would be about "5% of market price." It's not because it costs that much to make.

Yeah they are pretending to be the red cross... That's not cool... but that's a seperate issue.

You have no proof that the products are fake. They're probably saving lives by increasing access to antivenom drugs to people in third-world countries who don't have 3000 usd.

drugs in general cost pennies to manufacture, no matter what they are, not counting recouping R&D costs or marketing costs, etc.
 
g1c9 said:
You guys are acting dumb.

You can buy blood pressure, cancer, and AIDS medication online for "5% of market price" as well. It's rarely fake (then the customer would die and stop buying). It's just from a country that doesn't respect the patent rights of the developer or whatever.

Why do you think it costs $3,000 per 1-gram vial. If they substituted pure meth it would be about "5% of market price." It's not because it costs that much to make.

Yeah they are pretending to be the red cross... That's not cool... but that's a seperate issue.

You have no proof that the products are fake. They're probably saving lives by increasing access to antivenom drugs to people in third-world countries who don't have 3000 usd.

drugs in general cost pennies to manufacture, no matter what they are, not counting recouping R&D costs or marketing costs, etc.
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It's nowhere near as easy to make antivenom as drugs are. You need horses, and you need lots of snakes, you need to milk the snakes (by someone who doesn't mind doing that with deadly snakes), and you need to sanitarily draw up the venom, and inject it into the horses (without getting kicked, I'd imagine most horses don't take too kindly to snake bites), wait around for a year, then draw off a small amount of blood and reduce it to the antibodies. It's a lengthy process. As far as I know, there are no patents on antivenin, so it's not like there's anything stopping Sun Pharma and the like from doing it more cheaply, providing they pass FDA testing.

But even ignoring that, claiming you're part of the Red Cross, a member of all these different organisations, while selling a product that could result in death if not up to standard, that's not ok. If you want to be shady while selling diet pills, worst case scenario, fat people stay fat. But don't do that while messing with people's lives. I don't see pharmacy sites claiming they're part of these kinds of organisations.

Here's some more of their sites:
AsianSnakeWine.com | VIETNAMESE SNAKE WINE LIQUOR CHINESE MEDECINE
Buy-Snake-Wine.com | BUY-SNAKE-WINE.COM
Snake-Wine-Cobra.com | SNAKE WINE SHOP & LIQUOR STORE
 
Update (too late to edit):

Some information:

http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/103/06/0635.pdf

See page 639. This company supplies to the indian government for $2.50 per bottle. It is made using the method you describe.

Snakes are cheap.
Horses are cheap.
Indians are cheap.
= Anti-venom is cheap.

I placed an order on the website.

Your order number is 117.
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Not a big operation. If you really want to figure out who is running this, just place an order with a legitimate email account and they will send you wire transfer details.

But it sounds likely to me, after some quick googling, that they are re-selling medicine produced by a Thai organization which is funded/sponsored/supported/endorsed by the international red cross. Judging from their other websites, this is probably run by some expat living in Thailand who is probably originally from Belgium.

Yeah they are totally using the Red Cross brand without permission. But they are referring to the fact that their product IS made by the red cross. Until I see evidence otherwise, I'm tempted to think that they're more or less performing a public service by saving people thousands of dollars on anti-venom. And they are buying this from the Red Cross, which profits minimally from its manufacture.

Raising snakes, saving lives

Notice the bottom of the packaging boxes in the blurry product photos. The address of manufacture is Bangkok, Thailand and the company is the Thai Red Cross.

Speaking as a guy who has lived in Bangkok for 5 years, it would be far easier and cheaper for me to just buy real anti-venom from the Red Cross and ship it to customers than it would be for me to fill vials with water and make packaging, if I were dumb enough to run this website.

Reverse IP lookup finds some more siam-centric sites: Beauty-Siam.com | etc
 
Honestly? Never expected to see this on WF. I know some people in this organization. I'll see what I can do...
 
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