According to a Better Business Burea Report, crooks are calling seniors pretending to be Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plan providers or government officials, and offering to enroll them in the program over the phone. The criminals then use the personal and financial information they coax from the seniors for the purposes of identity theft.

The following advice was offered to keep Seniors safe from these scam artists.

• Carefully review the “Medicare & You” 2006 handbook that has been provided to every senior citizen. The booklet explains in detail what prescription drug coverage means to you and which plans are available in your area.
• Legitimate providers are permitted to contact consumers, but they must observe federal and state do-not-call laws and registries. Also, they should be willing to send you information about the plan in the mail, and to wait to obtain any necessary personal and financial information until after you decide to enroll.
• If someone calls you out of the blue to offer a Medicare prescription drug plan and asks for personal and financial information, obtain their name, the name of their company or agency, and their phone number. Ask them to send you information about their plan in the mail. Do not provide your bank account number, your Social Security number or any other personal information over the telephone.
• Verify the legitimacy of any provider that contacts you by calling the Medicare toll-free phone number, (800) MEDICARE (800-633-4227), which is open 24 hours a day.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 2nd, 2005 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Medicare Part D. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.