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Medicate or Healthcare Scam Text Message: Did you receive an message claiming ACTION NEEDED: We have been unable to reach you regarding your health plan renewal

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Have You Received a Scam Text Message?
From Medicare or Healthcare Services, claiming:
"ACTION NEEDED: We have been unable to reach you regarding your health plan renewal"

Did you receive an email from Healthcare Services, claiming ACTION NEEDED: We have been unable to reach you regarding your health plan renewal? Did they then instruct you to III or something similar?

Medicare and other Health Insurance scams are one of the fastest growing areas of scams today. Did you receive an email from your insurance company saying you missed a payment that you are sure you made?  It may be a scam. Did you get a text message or phone call from someone claiming to be from Medicare, Healthcare.gov, Obamacare or the Affordable Care Insurance Agency?  Again, likely to be a scam. 

See the links below to compare what you received against the most common scams and learn how to recognize a scam.

Well, don't fall for it.  It is a scam, and if you call them back or follow their instructions you will lose money and possibly your identity! The people behind this are the worst kind of human scum; willing to do anything to scare, threaten, lie, cheat and steal money from anyone, including the elderly and poor. The phone is this specific message belongs to a dance studio in Texas. Do not give out your Medicare, credit or debt card numbers.

The scammers usually operate out of Nigeria, China, Russia and even some developed western countries. Attachments typically include malware to infect your computer, tablet or phone and allow the scammer to capture your passwords.

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1. Report received:

   From 833-942-4396, but it could come from ANY number

   ACTION NEEDED: We have been unable to reach you regarding your health plan renewal. Please call customer service at (800)-431-7454.

Information About Healthcare Services, claiming ACTION NEEDED: We have been unable to reach you regarding your health plan renewal

Warning signs of a potential scam or scammer:

Learning how to recognize an insurance scam can help you avoid becoming a victim. Insurance scams come in many forms and some are easier to detect than others.

•  People ask you for money to enroll you in Marketplace or "Obamacare" insurance. Legitimate Healthcare.gov enrollment assisters will NOT ask for money.
• High-pressure tactics in person, on the phone or in mail or email. Usually from people claiming to work for the government. No one should threaten you with legal action if you do not sign up for an insurance plan.
  
• Requests for personal information from people who you did not contact first. This is likely to be identity theft. No one from the government will call or email you to sell you an insurance plan or ask for personal identifying information.
• Fake, spoofed websites. Always check the web address.  It should be .gov, not .com or something else. The scammers can fake official-looking government seals and logos, so it doesn't mean anything if it looks official!
• If the email, letter or phone call refers to you with a generic title, like "Dear member" that is often a sign of a scam.  Your real insurance provider has you name and will use it.
  

Tips to avoid being scammed:

• Be careful when giving out personal information, such as credit card, bank account numbers, or Social Security numbers.
• Always ask for identification if someone comes to your door.
• Don't sign paperwork unless you have read and understand it.
• Don't respond to letters or emails asking you to wire money via Western Union MoneyGrams.
•  If you are a Medicare beneficiary, you do NOT need to buy insurance in the new Health Insurance Marketplace.
• For guideance about health insurance see our sister website, ConsumersHealthcareGuide.org.
  

How to report insurance scams

• File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission: Complaint Form
• See your state insurance fraud reporting agency.
• If you suspect identity theft, or feel like you gave your personal information to someone you shouldn't have, use the Federal Trade Commission's online Complaint Assistant.You should also contact your local police department. Visit www.ftc.gov/idtheft  to learn more about identity theft.
• Call the Health Insurance Marketplace call center at 1-800-318-2596 (TTY: 1-855-889-4325). Explain what happened and your information will be handled appropriately.

And please let us know about any suspicious calls or emails you receive.  We look for patterns so that we can alert the authorities and victims to new scams, before it is too late!

us software that could capture sensitive data, such as online banking user names and passwords. They might also then charge you to remove this software.

See these pages for guidance as applicable to your specific situation:

• If you are certain you don't owe a debt: What to do about harassing Emails
• If you may owe a debt: Debt collection Emails - what they may do, what the may not do and how to stop them
• If you are being harassed by the collector: file a compliant against a debt collector with the FTC - Use this form to submit a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Bureau of Consumer Protection about a particular company or organization..
• How to stop telemarketers

Protect Yourself:

The following documents and websites can help you learn more about phishing and how to protect yourself against phishing attacks.

• Avoiding Social Engineering and Phishing Attacks
• Protecting Your Privacy
• Understanding Web Site Certificates
• Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG)
• Federal Trade Commission, Identity Theft
• Recognizing and Avoiding Email Scams

Methods of Reporting Phishing Email to the US Government

• In Outlook Express, you can create a new message and drag and drop the phishing email into the new message. Address the message to phishing-report@us-cert.gov  and send it.
• In Outlook Express you can also open the email message^* and select File > Properties > Details. The email headers will appear. You can copy these as you normally copy text and include it in a new message tophishing-report@us-cert.gov .
• If you cannot forward the email message, at a minimum, please send the URL of the phishing website.

* If the suspicious mail in question includes a file attachment, it is safer to simply highlight the message and forward it. Some configurations, especially in Windows environments, may allow the execution of arbitrary code upon opening and viewing a malicious email message.

For More Information About Phishing, See:

• Click Here for a copy of NCL's Phishing Brochure.  Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader'.
• How Not to Get Hooked by a 'Phishing' Scam  [PDF version]
  Offers tips on how to avoid falling victim to a new type of spam scam in which consumers are deceived into handing over personal financial information.
• Is Someone "Phishing" for Your Information?  [PDF version]
  Cautions consumers about emails that claim to be from government agencies in an attempt to steal personal information.
• Digital PhishNet Web site.
• Phish Report Network - a cooperative effort by several companies providing an information clearinghouse that will be run by WholeSecurity, a provider of client-side security solutions.
• Internet Crime Prevention & Control Institute, a cooperative effort between Zero Spam Network Corp. and the University of Miami. Staffed by Miami undergraduate and graduate students and Zero Spam employees, works closely with the Secret Service's Electronic Crimes Task Force and ISPs in the United States and abroad to identify and block traffic to machines hosting phishing sites.
  • Report A Crime
  • FTC Fraud Reporting

There are several websites that focus on reports of scam Emails.

The links below go to pages on these other websites were you can read reports about the scams associated with this phone number (855-687-1444, claiming This is Microsoft. This call is to inform you that your Microsoft license key has expired):

• Microsoft Safety and Security Center
• Microsoft Community - Windows Support Scam - I was called by someone who said they were windows support and my computer was sending them warnings and messages!
• ARS Technica

Related Scams

There are a number of common telephone scams, such as:

• Collect Call scams
• Inmate collect call scams
• Phone service is about to be cut off
• Telemarketers

and some new and as yet, uncommon scams.

 

For a comprehensive list of national and international agencies to report scams, see this page.