Disease Prevention Program

I've been getting calls from an Indian call center identifying itself as "Disease Prevention Program" and trying to get Medicare information (and, presumably, money). Naturally, each call comes from a different spoofed number, so there's no point in posting them in the number threads. Nothing too notable about another Medicare scam but it is interesting that all the calls come from a live person rather than a bot.

To clarify: They're running the "free Covid test" scam and trying to get people's medicare information. They're presumably the same scammers who used to pretend to be calling from Medicare and they've switched to calling themselves "Disease Prevention Program" because it's been widely publicized that anyone calling and claiming to be Medicare is a scammer.

I've received a half-dozen on my cell phone in the last month, and they tell me (in a heavy Indian accent) that they're "from Medicare".  I have to notice the call, and be feeling either playful or angry, in order to answer in the first place.  (They don't ring.)  You can probably guess how the conversation goes for each.

Examples abound from the phone blocker service N_M_R_bo, derived from "Disease Prevention Program" as a search term. I guess they date to early March but the volume may have risen sharply last week.

I suspect that many calls lead, after the transfer 'bloip', to the same noisy Indian BPO nest, staffed by drones who can barely pronounce their scripts. From #808-320-6012, my current favorite live rep is "Mare-dee Jone-son" and her many tells that English is "nawt" a dominant language: "Sir I can-nawt take your much time. ... The reason of my call is there to let you know that the COVID is again on rise."

While many appear to avoid canned voices, there is a very active "Ricky" soundboard character, a more glib South Asian man who makes verbal flubs in consistent places to simulate a live caller. "Ricky" examples are attached to numbers 228-200-0719, 972-450-1400, and 818-622-1334. For the last one, after tossing to the boiler room, the fumbling rep mangles his own shake name with a possibly off-script variant of the "program" name: "... connect-eeng thee Carl Disease Pree-vention Center".

From #334-621-6434, another variant opens with Neutral American soundboard character "Lynette" from the fictitious "Medicare Department of Health Care Benefits". Her pitch lights up Sir Bed's point about easy adaptation to a rapid COVID test kit premise from Medicare Advantage plan hawking, teasing that "the updated plan for Medicare ... may give you some better access to things like dental, vision, hearing, and over-the-counter benefits."

Yet "Lynette" tosses straight to South Asian "David Parker on thee recorded line calling you frahm Disease Prevention Program", incidentally echoing all those "recorded line" and "license number" disclosures from past illegal sales campaigns, which I suppose are meant to inspire trust in the cold caller.

Assuming the premise that all of these wage slaves can't wait to send a batch of COVID test kits, it explains why they want to confirm once and twice and nine times over that call recipients are currently covered under both Medicare Parts A and B. The federal Public Health Emergency reaches its 'postponed but we mean it this time' sunset on Thursday 11 May 2023. With that goes the offer to obtain the eight monthly freebie kits enabled by Part B.

The little snag is that the benefit is not set up for mail order. We're meant to place and fetch the orders across a counter at a pharmacy or clinic, which I expect keeps distribution fair and helps limit who gets your sensitive data. Unless the cold callers offer a round trip plane ride to Gujarat Province, they have no fulfillment plan, and great incentive to gather more data than they need.

One solution is to make vendor partners of some pharmacies, and their suppliers by extension. My one reference is a cheap TV spot with heavy recent airplay offering the eight-a-month delivery, "at no cost to you" it repeatedly stresses. At the end comes the tiny text disclosure needed for debunking. The linked copy has a placeholder phone number and names three rinky-dink pharmacies with misspelled addresses. Their skimpy websites, two of the three who own any, say nothing of participation in some massive test kit mailing operation.

This clear-as-mud arrangement suggests the simplest way to turn a buck if you're a schemer without a proper job, which is to pump victims for all the "qualifying" information they'll give and send huge bills to Medicare while sending the insured an invisible box of nothing. "Lynette" and "Ricky" and their friends also tout "no cost to you", mainly to send your gaze away from the pending blast radius. It just happens the FTC warned against this very outcome last August.

There remain plenty of genuine methods to obtain free tests, which should "nawt take your much time" and with relative anonymity while time and supply allow. These include one last round of home delivery through USPS to each household which sends a request. Meantime, we'll endure another six weeks of virulent fraud "again on rise".

COVID.gov FAQ
Here’s where to get FREE COVID tests - FTC, 21 Dec 2022
How to get your At-Home Over-The-Counter COVID-19 Test for Free - Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Expanding Access to COVID-19 Testing Supplies - Health Resources & Services Administration, last reviewed Jan 2023

While this week President Biden did lay ink to the bill ending the COVID-19 emergency, the related Public Health Emergency (PHE) sunset on 11 May is untouched. Therefore a whole range of protocols and benefits remain active until then, including methods for obtaining freebie rapid test kits. The caveat there is "while supplies last", a point of urgency I would expect the fraud shops to weave into their pitches for the next month.

COVID-19 Public Health Emergency - Department of Health & Human Services, no edits since 02 Mar 2023
Era of ‘Free’ Covid Vaccines, Test Kits, and Treatments Is Ending. Who Will Pay the Tab Now? - Kaiser Health, 10 Feb 2023

Still getting calls from Lynette and the Disease Prevention Program, along with Alpha Labs, True X Labs, and Festive Health. A request for their business address leads to a quick click.

I have been getting them too.  The caller ID says "CDK GLOBAL LLC" with phone number 847-610-1xxx  (the last 3 digits always vary).  That company name BTW is a real auto / truck parts supplier (obviously the number is hacked illegally inserted into a true legal company number) in Illinois (I am in Illinois too). The calls used to start with a bot named "Rachel" that would ask me a few questions "Do you have Medicare Part A and B?" then transfer me to an "agent", with heavy Indian accent with tons of background noise.  They ask me for my name (I give a bogus one) and my birthdate and age. I gave a bogus age "70" and when asked for the date, I said "April 6, 1954" at which point the "agent" yelled at me "You're lying!" and hung up on me. That was rude. I try to string them along each time to waste their time. They call me 3-4 times a day. You'd think by now their computer would realize they aren't going to get anywhere with me.  The last time the guy wanted me to spell and pronounce my name. How dumb do they think we are?

Unfortunately lots of people fall for this.  If you are going to play them then you have to have all your ducks in a row.  You need to figure out what year works for whatever age you are going to give them.  You will also need to make up a fake Medicare Card number following the format on the card and a date that would make sense according to the birthday that you gave them.  Most likely after it is all over you will get to talk to someone here in America and that is the party you need to know about so that you can both report them and sue them.

The $64,000 question = will these calls stop by May 11? Still getting 4-6 calls per day, some callers can barely read and pronounce their scripts.

BTW, the word you are looking for is "spoofed" not "hacked".

Sir Bevedere wrote:

I've been getting calls from an Indian call center identifying itself as "Disease Prevention Program" and trying to get Medicare information (and, presumably, money). Naturally, each call comes from a different spoofed number, so there's no point in posting them in the number threads.

Those are making the rounds here as well, also from spoofed numbers claiming to originate from all across the US.

Resident47 wrote:

While many appear to avoid canned voices, there is a very active "Ricky" soundboard character, a more glib South Asian man who makes verbal flubs in consistent places to simulate a live caller. "Ricky" examples are attached to numbers 228-200-0719, 972-450-1400, and 818-622-1334. For the last one, after tossing to the boiler room, the fumbling rep mangles his own shake name with a possibly off-script variant of the "program" name: "... connect-eeng thee Carl Disease Pree-vention Center".

I've received a number of calls from the "Ricky" voice who has also used "James" and perhaps another name that escapes me at the moment. This may be the IVR that is so poorly programmed that when I've said I don't have Medicare it still says I'm approved and I'll be forwarded to a live operator.

My mom has received unsolicited kits. to her credit, she's still savvy enough not to fall for these scams and she's reported receipt of the kits to Medicare.

Resident47 wrote:

From #334-621-6434, another variant opens with Neutral American soundboard character "Lynette" from the fictitious "Medicare Department of Health Care Benefits". Her pitch lights up Sir Bed's point about easy adaptation to a rapid COVID test kit premise from Medicare Advantage plan hawking, teasing that "the updated plan for Medicare ... may give you some better access to things like dental, vision, hearing, and over-the-counter benefits."

Lynette has also been making the rounds here as well, as have some other Medicare scams. American Senior Benefits seems to be another one hitting this area hard right now.

Despite not being old enough for Medicare myself, I've had live ops call me as part of their scamming efforts; one in particular accused me of lying when I said I didn't have Medicare and continued to press me for my Medicare number.

Ditto here. Odd thing is the CID will only say "Incoming Call". No #.  However my call(s) start with an IVR and then transferred to some "human"...