With New Jersey’s vaccine rollout continuing to expand, state security officials have issued a warning about a couple of new vaccine-related scams.

Jared Maples, the director of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, said over the past few weeks a growing number of people have been receiving fraudulent survey texts and emails, supposedly from pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, asking you to click on different links to complete a vaccine survey.

The links, if clicked, give thieves access to personal information.

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Maples said scammers are making phony promises to reward you in different ways just for taking the survey.

Another scam being spread by texts and email messages, supposedly from the Department of Health, asking you to fill in various personal data, like a credit card number, a bank account number or your name and date of birth.

“In both cases, whether it be the Department of Health or one of the major bio-pharma companies, if they are real they will not ask for that type of personal information in any form, and certainly not like that,” Maples said.

Maples said it’s important for people to be aware of what’s going on so they don’t get duped.

“These are bad actors who take advantage of situations,” he said. “Don’t just click on a link, just don’t believe a text message that comes in. The department of Health and legitimate pharma companies are not going to ask for that type of information via text message. It’s just not going to happen.”

More information about COVID scams and how you can report them is at Homeland Security website.

You can contact reporter David Matthau at David.Matthau@townsquaremedia.com

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