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MEDICARE SECTION
TELEMARKETING SCAM CALLS: A Client's Testimonial; How To Handle Scam Calls; Keep Me As Your "Agent of Record"
I recently heard from a client about multiple telemarketing calls he received and his experience. I wrote in my newsletters before about receiving these types of Medicare calls and how to report the scam calls. I call them "scam calls" because they are calls where you did not give the caller permission to call you to discuss anything about Medicare, like: discussing plan choices, changing your Medicare plan, discussing other insurance and switching to topic to Medicare.
These unsolicited calls are against agents compliance and regulations. Every year, we as agents, have to recertify and past testing with all the insurance companies we will be representing and selling for in the upcoming year. One of the biggest items we attest to is to NOT buy marketing list and make random calls to those eligible for Medicare to solicit business. We as agents/brokers can get fined and possibly lose our license.
CMS, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, has cracked down on this practice since COVID because of the volume of complaints filed. The advertising we experienced on the television was constant and told us to call an 800# to get more information. The ads also stressed that we might be missing benefits and to call to find out how to get more benefits that you are missing out on. These ads made us believe that you needed to call.
THE PROBLEM: Once you called the 800# to “find out more” what you did is “gave permission” because you called the phone number for the CALL CENTER. You called to discuss your Medicare options. You initiated the call, bottom line! Once you then share your name, phone number, address, and more (with this Call Center/Agent) your personal information could be added to a marketing list which gets sold to other agencies. You essentially allowed a call center to SELL your information to an agent/broker to call you (once they collect your information).
What this all means? That if you switched your plan with someone who called you, someone you don’t know that is hopefully licensed to sell and offer Medicare plans, that person becomes your AGENT OF RECORD and will get paid for your enrollment. This further means that you LOSE ME as your “Agent of Record” to service your Medicare health insurance plan(s), which is also how I get paid. I have had a lot of confusion on this and how my clients understand how this system works. So I wanted to educate you so you know, and then you decide.
The biggest problem when working with these call centers or random callers becomes is the plan they switched you to even going to work for you? Do they put the time in to look up your doctors and prescriptions? Do they spend the time with you to explain the Medicare plan in detail? Are they clear when explaining to you how the benefits work? If this has happened to you are you happy with your Medicare plan they switched you to several months down the road? Can you call them back if you have a question or problem? Do you have a working relationship with them? Where they referred to you? You decided.
It is my goal to return calls, text messages, and emails within 24 to 48 hours. I pride myself on servicing because servicing client’s needs and questions is how business is done. Without clients there is no business. I feel servicing clients is far and few between these days. I feel that a lot of companies and people no longer take pride in their work.
Now on to my clients testimonial - This is his experience with random calls he received and how he handled them:
Let’s call this client Robert. He writes: “I received 2 calls in the last hour from someone purporting to be from Medicare and also received multiple calls per day for the last week from similar numbers in the 315-637-xxxx area. They knew my full name and street address and sounded legitimate. I finally pursued a conversation with the caller and asked why his stated name did not match my caller id and I asked for the city and state that he was calling from. He then hung up. Maybe now they will willingly take me off their sucker list and stop calling. But this has been very annoying and Medicare advises that there is nothing that they or I can do. Hopefully someone can figure out how to stop these calls before I become too old and senile."
"Unfortunately I received 3 more calls this morning. The last 4 digits of the phone number keep changing so blocking is not an option. This time it was from a gal who said she was with Medicare Providers and that she was in Los Angeles. She hung up when i asked why my caller id showed 315-637-xxxx, Fayetteville."
"The majority of scam calls from this Medicare scammer have ended. I complained to the NYS Attorney General's and they sent me a nice acknowledgement via US mail. But, for telephone scams, they indicated that a complaint should be made to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and that the NYS attorney general's office was filing a complaint on my behalf. If enough people complain, politicians and telephone service providers may feel more pressure to address this issue. As a minimum, modern technology should be able to prevent spammers and scammers from fooling caller ID and from lying about their telephone numbers. (The only good thing about this spoofing was that the scammer hung up every time when I asked where they were calling from and why did my caller ID showed otherwise).”
I responded to Robert by adding that he can also report these calls to the Department of Financial Services (DFS). Here is the link to the website for the DFS:
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