Watch Out for These Health Scams on World Health Day

Happy World Health Day! While we’re all focusing on fitness, nutrition, and wellness, scammers are doing their own kind of stretches—stretching the truth, that is.

Scammers love wellness trends because they make for great bait. From bogus supplements to fake fitness apps and AI-generated miracle cures, the health and wellness industry is riddled with deception and fraud.

But don’t worry—we’ve got a wellness plan for your cyber health too. Let’s break down the most common health scams and how to avoid them.

Let’s run through healthcare scams (or health-related ones) and quick safety tips:

Supplement Scams and Fake AI-Powered Miracle Cures

“Burn fat while you sleep!”, “Results from the first days of using! 100% natural with no adverse effects!” If you’ve seen these lines before, you’re not alone. Scammers often sell miracle pills and supplements online, particularly through social media ads and spammy websites. And now, AI is making supplements and other health-related scams more convincing than ever (and far-reaching), though fake celebrity endorsements and deepfakes and ease of localization.

According to Bitdefender Labs research, scammers use AI to generate product reviews, before and after photos, and celebrity endorsements to lure victims into buying fake or dangerous supplements. These ads often link to typosquatted websites that look legitimate, and the products may contain unregulated or harmful ingredients—or never arrive at all.

Stay safe tips:

Only buy supplements from trusted retailers. And if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Copy and paste that sketchy link into Bitdefender Scamio before you click buy. Scamio can quickly tell you if that “miracle pill” is part of a fraudulent scheme.

Fitness and Health Apps That Flex Your Data, Privacy and Device Security

You downloaded that calorie tracker or heart rate monitor to get healthier—but what if it’s quietly stealing your data and sneaking malware onto your phone?

As you’ve probably guessed, not all health apps are healthy for your device. According to Bitdefender Labs, some malicious Android apps—including those disguised as health and wellness tools—have bypassed Google Play’s security. Once installed, they request excessive permissions, download malware payloads, and even hide their icons to stay on your phone unnoticed. Some health apps flagged in recent campaigns used encrypted payloads to evade detection, and triggered dangerous behavior after a delay, avoiding suspicion

Stay safe tips:

• Install apps only from trusted developers with good reviews. Avoid anything with very few downloads and no privacy policy.
• Don’t grant unnecessary permissions (does your pedometer really need access to your camera and contacts?).
• If an app disappears from your screen after you install it—that’s a major red flag.

Medical Billing and Insurance Scams

Scammers may call pretending to be from a clinic, claiming you owe money—or they offer “cheap” health insurance that doesn’t exist.

Red flags:

• Urgent payment requests
• Requests for Social Security numbers or bank details
• Offers that sound too generous to be real

However, scammers don’t always need to trick you directly—they can buy your health data off the dark web, often leaked in massive data breaches. Take the recent case in France, where over 20 million health insurance policyholders had sensitive personal data exposed, including full names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and insurance coverage details. Scammers can use this info to impersonate you in phishing emails or calls (“We noticed suspicious activity on your health insurance account...”), open fraudulent medical claims or insurance policies or trick you into paying fake medical bills.

Stay Safe Tips:

Don’t trust inbound calls you didn’t expect. Hang up and call your provider directly.  If you receive a message or link that seems too accurate, it's worth double-checking. Scamio can analyze links, messages, or screenshots to help you tell real from fake.

Let Scamio Be Your Wellness Coach (for Scams)

This World Health Day, you can protect both your physical health and digital health by staying alert, shopping smart, and letting Bitdefender do the heavy lifting on scam detection.

Bitdefender’s free tool Scamio is like a wellness tracker for scams. Got a weird email, text, or ad? Send it to Scamio via Messenger, WhatsApp, or web, and it’ll let you know if it smells fishy—no app install needed.

For quick, on-demand URL checks, use Bitdefender Link Checker for free.

You can also pair it with Bitdefender’s Digital Identity Protection to keep your health-related accounts (and everything else) from being misused in data leaks.

Here’s to a healthier, safer you!