Desinformante - January 19, 2024
“Do you need a medical certificate and want to do this without leaving home? It’s very quick and easy”, suggests a woman with blonde hair in an ad running on Facebook. The advertisement in question is from a German company that offers Brazilians certificates for 29 reais without the need for a medical consultation, just by filling out an online form. Another sponsored piece was also published on Google Brazil results pages.
The service that seems to make life easier for workers, however, caught the attention of the Regional Council of Medicine of the State of São Paulo (Cremesp), which warned that the announcement are unauthorised the certificates are false, since for this document to be valid in country, among other standards, it must be signed by a doctor registered with a Regional Medicine Council (CRM).
Carlos Eduardo Barros, project coordinator at NetLab, explains that, although the phenomenon is not new, last year there was a significant increase in the number of scams that were spread using advertisements on digital platforms. “Several researchers around the world point out that we may be experiencing a fraud epidemic,” said Barros.