O’Neill Healthcare Bay Village Presents “Protect Yourself Against Scams”

Scams against senior citizens lurk at every area of life these days! As a public service to educate the community on Scam protection, O’Neill Healthcare Bay Village hosted a community presentation last week entitled, “How Did This Happen?”

Barbara Kornuc, Community Liaison, Stano Law Firm offered advice on protecting yourself and your personal information from scammers and crooks.

“The internet is a lot smarter than we are!” said Barbara. “We have to be very careful as to who we give our information to.”

A coming scam that will be seen frequently this year will be associated with new Medicare Cards. Beginning April 1, Medicare began a year-long project to replace all current Medicare cards for beneficiaries to convert to alphanumeric ID numbers. Currently, the ID number is your social security number.

“All the new Medicare Cards will come in the mail,” advises Barbara. “You don’t need to request it or do anything. It will show up.”

Here is the new scam: Somebody from Medicare will (pretend) to call you to tell you that you are getting a new Medicare Card. But, until it comes you will need a temporary card (not true). Fee for the card is between $5-50. The scammer will want personal information, bank account info or credit card so they can process the temporary card.

REMEMBER THIS: Medicare will never call you unless you ask them to call. They do all communication by mail. Ditto for anybody saying they work for Medicare to make sure you get everything you’re entitled to. Scammer Alert!

Other Ways to Protect Yourself:

• Make a family password – a family password can be useful to make sure info you are getting from a purported source is legitimate. A family password will ensure that the info shared, or the person who shares it, is legitimate. Good for kids, too, who should be taught to ask a stranger who talks to them for the family password before trusting the person.
• Obituaries – leave birth dates off. Too much information can be gathered based on a person’s name and birth date.
• Fraud in Family or Healthcare worker – Sad to say, much fraud occurs when family members or healthcare workers have access to credit cards or bank account information and it is used for unauthorized purposes.
• Contractors – Don’t pay until the work is done and read the fine print before you sign.
• Free Wi-fi – This makes your computer vulnerable when it is open in free wi-fi locations. Easy for crooks to access your computer info.
• Also remember that the IRS will NEVER call you up, let alone ask for a payment over the phone!

Your best bet? Screen all your phone calls with an answering machine, or simply do not answer a number you do not recognize.