The Canadian Pharmacy Scam

Ah, the old Canadian Pharmacy. Almost daily, at least one of my 5 active email accounts receives a message from “Canadian Pharmacy” promising me access to whatever popular drugs I want, sans prescription. While I’ve always known these emails were spam, what I have always wondered is if they came from one company, or if there were many places referring to themselves as the Canadian Pharmacy. Today I’m comparing three such emails to see how connected these “Canadian Pharmacies” really are.

Email #1 

Received on 5/3/2012 at one of my accounts. The text reads:
OUR-CANADIAN-PHARMACY-HAS-ALL-YOUR-MEDS-FOR-80%-OFF-RETAIL
SAVE A FORTUNE ON HUNDREDS OF OTHER MEDS
SIMPLY CLICK BELOW NOW AND HAVE MEDS DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR WITHOUT A PRESCRIPTION
www.medicareprescriptiongroup.com

This website was created only a month prior to the email I received, and no longer exists. On the website, we are met with a list of popular drugs, along with prices. If you go to checkout, you are bounced over to trustrxbilling.com to complete the order. The recent creation date is a red flag, as is the “without a prescription” promise.

Email #2
Received 5/3/2012 at a different email address:
An email with the subject: “Our online pharmacy has already joined millions of families! So, don’t dilly-dally and join our great healthy family right now!”

The body of the email contains a table with a list of various drugs. The email arrived from an invalid email address. The website calls itself “Canadian Health & Care Mall.” Upon checkout, will send us once again to the official-sounding trustrxbilling.com. That domain, however, was only created in March 2012.

Email #3
Received on April 29, 2012. This one is virtually identical to email #2, this time with the subject “Our Internet store provides not only cheap quality medications, but qualified specialists support and free goods delivery!” and using an address from bobjoe.com, which is clearly a fake address. Clicking links in this email will take us to medtabpause.com which was created on March 7, 2012. Registration for that site has since expired. Upon checkout, once again, we are taken to trustrxbilling.com.

Over 1400 and Counting
It becomes clear that trustrxbilling.com is fed by many Canadian Pharmacy template websites, that are thrown together quickly, spammed like crazy, and then shut down once their domains become blocked. Viewing the whois link above, we find that trustrxbilling.com is registered via a Russian registrar. That doesn’t mean the company is based in Russia, but does give one pause.

I did a Google search for a text string I found on trustrxbilling.com to see how many other websites were using this template. I came up with nearly 1400 identical matches. That’s 1400 other websites with the same text as trustrxbilling.com – a website that has only existed for two months.

They claim to be anti-spammers
It’s humorous to read the anti-spam section of these sites, where they pretend to care if you were spammed. We’re asked to report spam to them, which is almost certainly just to give the illusion that they are against spam. The trustrxbilling.com website has a “Report Spam” page that reads:

If you have received unsolicited advertising material which you believe was either sent by a user of Canadian Health&Care Mall services or as a result of using our services, please let us know.
Please type your email address below and we will take measures and start investigation in order to unsubscribe you from unwanted spam messages.

It’s humorous to see such a egregious spammer pretending to be against spam.

Why not buy their cheap drugs?
OK so all of these Canadian Pharmacies are actually the same outfit and they’re massive spammers. Why would that prevent someone from ordering their products anyway?

These places are not monitored or regulated. They claim to sell you highly-regulated drugs without a prescription.

What you receive in the mail is likely not what you’re paying for. Most, if not all, of their drugs are manufactured in questionable facilities using different ingredients than the real drug manufacturers. Further, by purchasing from one of these sites, you’re handing over personal and financial information to obviously shady and elusive scammers.

Bottom Line
Most of these Canadian Pharmacies are connected, and almost surely don’t offer the real drugs you seek. What you’ll get are unregulated cheap imitations manufactured from dangerous products in third world countries. You’ll also be trusting known scammers with your credit card information.