The American Society for Reproductive Medicine delivered email warnings to its members regarding a recently-surfaced impostor website, an ASRM spokesperson confirmed to Becker's Hospital Review Oct. 26.
The impostor website, ASRM2017.com, mimics an informational resource for the society's annual conference, slated to take place Oct. 28 through Nov. 1 in San Antonio. The official ASRM 2017 Scientific Congress & Expo website is asrmcongress.org.
The ASRM2017.com website includes information about the conference alongside a fraudulent housing request form, according to ASRM officials.
"They are fraudulently taking the money of attendees for housing," reads a scam alert on the ASRM website. "The official housing provider for ASRM is JSpargo, Inc. If an attendee books through another service, your money may be stolen and you will have no hotel room when you reach San Antonio."
ASRM officials encouraged those with questions about hotel booking to contact JSpargo, an event management company. Officials have not heard of any society members providing information to the impostor website, according to Sean Tipton, a society spokesperson.
"Unfortunately, these things are not uncommon," said Mr. Tipton, who serves as chief advocacy, policy and development officer at ASRM. "Sometimes enterprising folks can find [a domain name] we don't have and do this kind of work … We try to keep an eye on it as best we can."