Hello, my name is Ernest Mitchell and today we’re going to be talking about scams that are going on right now that have happened to our clients that could be affecting you or your loved ones. Scams are always changing so we want to make sure that you are updated and have all the current information.
So recently Lauren had a client that called us and said that someone had reached out to them on the phone and said that the medicare cards have changed from paper to plastic so in order for you to get your new Medicare card we need to get your number.
This is a client of mine who just turned 65 this month so she’s new to medicare so she still has a lot of questions. She called me last night kind of in a panic and I said what’s going on and she said oh Lauren she said I had to call Medicare and get a new number I did something that I shouldn’t have and she then explained to me that someone called sounded like it from a reputable organization possibly from medicare and said just want to let you know medicare cards are changing they’re now going to be plastic but I need to confirm your name birth date social and your medicare number and she gave them all that information thinking that she’s going to be getting a new plastic medicare card. Medicare cards aren’t plastic they are paper they will probably always be paper she said as soon as she hung up from that call she felt that something wasn’t right and she immediately called medicare and they issued her a new number and as soon as she got off the phone with medicare she called me just to keep me in the loop which I really appreciate because if something like that does happen you should definitely give us a call and let us know “Hey this just happened I’m not really sure if that was a scam call or not what do we do?”, but because she was so quick to act they were able to get her a new card I’ve already updated the information for her supplement and now she is aware that there are things like that out there that can happen and she feels you know that that she didn’t make the best decision I said you know it could happen to anybody because they do make it sound so believable that that this is it a real thing so now she’s aware we want to make sure you guys are all aware too. I think it was interesting that you said that when she told medicare so we informed Medicare that it was a scam medicare issued them a new number so I find it to me it’s just amazing that people are still trying so hard to do business in the fraud way because that’s a great way to lose your license you know because we’re going to find you if you’re out there doing stuff that’s wrong we will find you I will help medicare actively find you because I am on a mission to also I mean build a business and provide for my family but I also feel it’s just in my nature to protect people protect seniors from predators. I remember when I was back in the day when I used to run a lot of appointments out in the field on a regular basis there would be agents that I know that would scam my seniors by saying I need to see your Medicare card so that I can cancel the appointment so you know the person would knock on the door and didn’t have an appointment it would just knock on the door and say okay well we had an appointment there was no appointment but then would tell that senior okay well in order to cancel this appointment or to or to not give you these dental and vision discount cards that don’t really do anything I need to see your Medicare card. Scam scam scam scam, you should always as a senior or as an individual that lives with seniors educate your seniors because what happens is when they get your medicare card what they’re doing is they’re switching you into another plan a lot of times, it’s without your permission maybe they kind of casually say it at best or they just talk about one or two things that are in the plan that you might like but they negate to look up your prescriptions to make sure that your doctor’s in-network they’re not doing the things the due diligence that a credible insurance broker does to protect their clients on a daily basis would you agree?
I agree 100% and then all of a sudden you have this card you don’t know where it came from and your prescriptions aren’t covered the way they were before or a doctor’s not in network and you have no idea how this happened because you don’t remember signing anything, and we ran across this a couple of years ago I had three clients who were switched from an MAPD plan to a PDP they didn’t sign anything they don’t remember anybody coming out and they called me worried and kind of just really confused too like I don’t know what’s going on Lauren can you help me figure it out and we did a lot of digging we found out it was the same person who had reached out to all three of those individuals and switched them from an MAPD to a PDP and their prescription cost went through the roof and i had one guy who had to choose each month he was choosing between keeping his utilities on or buying his prescriptions and that’s not that’s just um it’s unethical to do something like that it’s, you’re gonna get caught we’re gonna make sure that you know we’re gonna find you like you said we’re gonna make sure you get caught because it’s wrong to do that to seniors another one that we’ve run into a couple times over the years, you’ll remember this, when someone calls and says hey your computer needs an update i need you to log in and we’re going to remote access your computer we’re from Microsoft okay oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah they they tend to be from Microsoft and they say they’re going to remote access your computer, please don’t fall for that. Sometimes they might have an Indian accent yeah yeah not to judge you never know but let’s see so I’ll just give you some some other nuggets while we’re talking with you guys and spending the time to to let you guys get to know us and also give you some information that can hopefully add value, let’s see one of the things we we we did a seminar to with the North Carolina retired teachers association and i put together some different things that can make you decide to what can give you more comfortability with the person that you decide to do business with, so one of the things that we’ve always done is there’s been times because you got to realize in the world that we live in now I don’t always meet everybody over the phone sometimes I’ll meet you via zoom sometimes it’s just a phone call and I’ve always believed that I need to be likable and logical but still you might not be there yet but yet you know that this is an opportunity that you need to take advantage of for instance if you don’t have life insurance you know that tomorrow you’re still going to wake up and you don’t have life insurance yet you might be the type of person that doesn’t want to give away all your personal information so this is what sets us apart as brokers from everybody else I don’t need it so if you really want to I can put the plan together for you and this is what i tell a lot of clients it doesn’t offend me i want you to be comfortable it defends me no way we’ll put together the plan for you we’ll submit it to the carrier and then if you really want it you can call the carrier directly this is just this is another contingency plan that you can use to protect yourself or your mother or your father can protect themselves or your friends or family. So I mean including our neighbors we just wrote policies on our neighbors they never gave us their banking information we wrote the policy the carrier got that information from them directly so it’s just another way and if you’re dealing with a broker or an agent that’s not willing to do that’s probably not the person that you want to deal with. That should be a red flag if someone keeps pushing and pushing and pushing for your banking information and they are not wanting to let up on that that should be a red flag for you because if you tell us hey I’m not really comfortable giving you my banking information we’re okay with that because there’s ways around it and and we’re not going to push and make you give that to us so that you become uncomfortable with dealing with us we want you to be comfortable talking to us working with us we want you to be able to ask us any questions that you have but there’s definitely ways around that yeah and and you and then what our job is is to ask a lot of questions figure out what scenarios what do you need the protection for and put together the program based on the conversations and the questions to protect you guys protect your family members protect your loved ones from having to come out of pocket that’s what insurance is about it’s about just in case stuff happens not if it’s going to happen it’s going to happen but when it happens do i have the appropriate components put in place so that i can leave out this world in a joyous manner with with providing a legacy of someone that was responsible. I guess like, yeah yeah that makes sense. You know you don’t want to be more of a burden yeah, so real quick before we go I think we’ve given you guys a lot of information today but I wanted to ask Ernest one non-insurance-related question Ernest what is your favorite book?
Oh okay, The Alchemist so I just read it, yeah I really enjoyed that book it was uh just uh the story about a young man it’s been a while since I read it but it was a story about a young man who started off with not much and he had this vision this dream that there are clues paying attention to the clues around the universe you know through the trees and he followed those types of clues listen to his history and was just very observant and it helped guide him to become successful I thought it was really it’s just and it’s told in a parable format so it’s a really cool story. Yeah let us know if you want to read it I can send you a copy yeah we sure can we will send it yeah I’ve sent that book to a lot of people it’s a good one we will send it for free on us if you’re interested in that book please you know put a comment below and we’ll send you a copy.
Have a blessed day.
See you next time!
Ernest Mitchell
Principal
Dear Retirement, Inc.
When Ernest isn’t creating amazing life long plans for his clients he’s spending quality time with his wife, Lauren, and their kids.