Author: SameAsItEverWas

By Kimberly Lankford – AARP

Published November 15, 2023

Senior Medicare Patrol volunteers are often the first to identify new Medicare scams because they meet one-on-one with Medicare beneficiaries. Here are some of the top scams they’re seeing and what you can do to protect yourself:

1. A new round of COVID fraud

During the height of COVID-19, criminals offered free coronavirus tests as a way to gather people’s Medicare numbers and other personal information and file fake claims in their name.

“Somebody calls unsolicited, offering to send a COVID test,” says Tiffany Erhard, New York state Senior Medicare Patrol director. “They aren’t sending real tests, but they’re billing as if they are, and they’re taking the person’s information to use it unscrupulously or sell it.”

After a major investigation, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General charged 18 defendants in nine federal districts across the U.S. for making more than $490 million in COVID-related false billings.

The scam died down but resurfaced near the end of the public health emergency, which officially expired May 11, 2023. Senior Medicare Patrols reported seven COVID complaints in January 2023, then suddenly had 72 in April.

“They’re using the end of the public health emergency to try to get personal information and Medicare numbers,” says Director Rebecca Kinney of the Administration for Community Living’s office of health care information and counseling. Her division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finances the Senior Medicare Patrol program.

Note: You can get four free COVID tests in the mail by requesting them at covid.gov/tests.

2. Bills for diabetes supplies

Volunteers in the Lone Star State report an increase in diabetes supply scams, says Diane Nguyen, program director for the Texas Senior Medicare Patrol.

Claims for continuous glucose monitoring devices are showing up on Medicare summary notices for people who don’t have diabetes and didn’t receive the device, she says. The scammers charge Medicare.

“The only reason we are seeing these cases is that people are checking their Medicare summary notices,” Nguyen says.

For more, read the full article at AARP

By Patrick J. Kiger,  – AARP

Published January 16, 2024

When U.S. Air Force veteran Amanda Pelletier, 49, set out to decorate the new home in Spring Branch, Texas, that she and her husband, Michael, 52, had purchased after their retirement from the military, she needed some side tables and other pieces of furniture. Like many people these days, she searched online and connected with a seller through Facebook Marketplace, the popular shopping site that’s part of social media platform Facebook.

Pelletier felt safe with her seller, who dealt in refurbished furniture and had previously sold a piece to Pelletier’s adult daughter. “I thought I was dealing with a real businessperson,” she explains.

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Pelletier ordered $4,200 worth of items, sending the money through a payment app that she says the seller insisted on using, and waited for her furniture to arrive. But it never did. Instead, the seller “started giving me excuses why she couldn’t deliver, like she got sawdust in her eye from doing the refurbishing,” Pelletier says. “It just snowballed, and got worse and worse.” Eventually, she realized “I was being scammed.”

Pelletier isn’t the only shopper who’s encountered a scammer on Facebook Marketplace, which debuted in 2016 as a rival to Craigslist and has grown into a massive e-commerce site where users can shop for everything from toys and pet supplies to used cars and houses. While Facebook Marketplace is a good place to find just about anything you might be looking to buy, the site’s popularity also attracts criminals who use a variety of scams to steal shoppers’ money, including peddling wares they never actually send.
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Sellers, too, are often inundated by messages from scammers, some of whom may be trying to get their personal information, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) recently warned. It noted that criminals have been asking sellers for their phone numbers so that they can text them a verification code — part of a process they can use to commit identity theft.

Facebook Marketplace’s size and familiar brand name may lull some shoppers into complacency, says Amy Nofziger, director of victim support for the AARP Fraud Watch Network. “But people need to understand that just because it’s on a big platform like Facebook, that doesn’t mean that anyone is vetting the sellers,” she cautions. “You have to go into it with eyes wide open.”

For full story, visit the AARP website