Cancer Diary: Con Artists

 

It was mid-morning on a slow Saturday, the kind where I sometimes—just sometimes—let the phone ring through instead of letting voicemail do the screening. It was a local number (831-458-2629), and I was waiting for a call from the plumber, so I was not suspicious and answered 

A man on the line introduced himself as a Medicare employee. He said my Medicare Advantage card was being replaced by the end of the month. The script was polished, almost believable, and if I had a Medicare Advantage plan, instead of basic Medicare, the flexibility of which I prefer, I might have been deceived a tad longer.

But even so, I have a protocol for "official" calls from strangers. Get the person's name, end the call, contact the agency for confirmation, and be routed to the office that would take care of the issue that the call was about. Or, if the call turned out to be a scam, report it.

When I requested the caller's name this morning, according to my unknown caller protocol, he gave me my late husband's. He spoke as if Carl were still alive, still the one listed for the card. That was his second mistake and maybe his worst. I did not clarify that Carl had passed, just asked again for his own name, asking him to spell it, so that I could check with Medicare and ensure that he was legitimate. He hung up after spelling out “F_Y_.”

This wasn’t just an annoyance. It was one more problem added to a day that didn’t ask for one. For people already managing cancer care, insurance forms, and the emotional churn of uncertainty, a scam call is a theft—not of money, necessarily, but of time, focus, and emotional bandwidth. It’s a punch of adrenaline followed by the dull ache of frustration. Reporting isn’t just civic duty—it’s recovery. It’s reclaiming control.

And here’s what makes these tactics sting even more: the impersonation was weak. Sloppy. And yet the scammer banked on me letting it slide. That I wouldn’t ask for his real name. That I wouldn’t bother reporting it.

But I did those things. Because when deception walks in dressed as helpfulness, you don’t owe it your politeness—you owe it your clarity. 

📌 Scam Disruption Tools: Whom to Contact & What to Share

1. Report to Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP)

• 🔗 Find your local SMP office
• 📞 Or call: 1-877-808-2468
• ✅ What to share:

• Date and time of the call
• Phone number (even if spoofed)
• What the caller said (e.g. Medicare Advantage switch)
• Your ZIP code (to track regional scam patterns)

2. Report to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

• 🔗 FTC Report Fraud Portal
• Select Government Imposter
• ✅ What to share:

• Caller’s claims (e.g. said they were with Medicare)
• Wrong name used (e.g. your deceased husband's)
• Your relationship to Medicare (e.g. you use Original Medicare)
• Any phrases or spelling the caller used (like “F_Y_”)
• How the call ended (e.g. caller hung up)

No need to include your Medicare number, SSN, or full birth date in either report—just enough context so they can flag the call pattern. You’ve already done the hard part: recognizing the scam and taking action.

Stay safe out there! If you are dealing with cancer, you have enough on your hands without letting the bozos "getcha."

For other Cancer Diary posts, click HERE.

Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl Leaver, MSI Press graphic arts director and designer, who died of Cancer of Unknown Primary August 16, 2021, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI Press is now hosting a web page, Carl's Cancer Compendium, as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The web page is in its infancy but expected to expand into robustness. To that end, it is expanded and updated weekly. As part of this effort, each week, on Monday, this blog carries an informative, cancer-related story -- and is open to guest posts: Cancer Diary. 

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