4 ms·

My experience with Robocalls (I get 25-30 per day) has been that the overwhelming majority are trying to run a scam against Medicair (the US government's health

by njovin 3y ago

My experience with Robocalls (I get 25-30 per day) has been that the overwhelming majority are trying to run a scam against Medicair (the US government's health program for older people) by fetching some personal information from the victim, which they then use to send fraudulent bills to Medicair. So I assume that the ease of scamming the US government in this regard contributes to us being the victims here. Edit: I hadn't RTFA and now I see this fine was about auto warranty scams. Second theory: lots of Americans are living below the poverty line, public transit sucks here so most people need cars to get to work, and it can get risky/expensive relying on an older vehicle to be able to get to work, so it makes an easy target to offer somebody what looks like coverage for a likely expensive auto failure for a few hundred dollars.

supertrope 3y ago
Signing people up for private Medicare plans is not fraudulent. Making robocalls to hawk them like is. Thus the whole product category becomes shady by association (car warranties, solar leases, debt consolidation loans, timeshares).
- costco 3y ago
  Typical scam looks more like this: They try to get information from your Medicare card. Then with your info they bill Medicare for $6000 custom back braces while sending you a $30 Chinese generic one (some physician who wittingly or unwittingly accepted a "work from home" job may be signing off on prescriptions for these). Despite Medicare policy, they don't care about collecting any copay from you, they just want to bill Medicare. The elderly person doesn't lose anything but Medicare does obviously. See https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.362202/gov.uscourts.flmd.362202.1.0.pdf#page=25 https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.36... for a particularly advanced formulation of this scheme. It's incredibly lucrative and has cost this country tens of billions of dollars a year for at least a couple decades. I wish more was done about it.

by njovin 3y ago

supertrope 3y ago

Signing people up for private Medicare plans is not fraudulent. Making robocalls to hawk them like is. Thus the whole product category becomes shady by association (car warranties, solar leases, debt consolidation loans, timeshares).

costco 3y ago
Typical scam looks more like this: They try to get information from your Medicare card. Then with your info they bill Medicare for $6000 custom back braces while sending you a $30 Chinese generic one (some physician who wittingly or unwittingly accepted a "work from home" job may be signing off on prescriptions for these). Despite Medicare policy, they don't care about collecting any copay from you, they just want to bill Medicare. The elderly person doesn't lose anything but Medicare does obviously. See https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.362202/gov.uscourts.flmd.362202.1.0.pdf#page=25 https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.36... for a particularly advanced formulation of this scheme. It's incredibly lucrative and has cost this country tens of billions of dollars a year for at least a couple decades. I wish more was done about it.