NASAA Cautions Investors to Guard against Ebola-Related Scams

The North American Securities Administrators Association ("NASAA") cautioned investors to be wary of opportunistic Internet-based investment schemes related to the outbreak of Ebola.

According to NASAA President William Beatty, an analysis of Internet domain names by state and Canadian securities regulators found that, since April 2014, nearly 1,200 domain names with "Ebola" in their title have been registered with top-level domains, such as .com, .net, and .org. Of these sites, 184 were identified by NASAA's Internet Fraud Investigations project group as "suspicious."

A review of some of these Ebola-related domain names found several with the words "fund," "invest," "stock" and "futures," including hotebolastocks.com, bestebolastocks.com, and ebolafutures.com, among others.

Mr. Beatty urged investors to contact their state or provincial securities regulator to determine whether both the promoter of the investment and the investment itself are licensed and registered.

See: NASAA Press Release.