Be alert to Medicare hospice fraud and new mobile job-offer cons, plus spot phishing scams

Creative scammers offer Medicare hospice services (to those who aren’t terminally ill). Beware of sophisticated job-offer frauds on mobile devices. And here’s how to spot pesky phishing scams.

A U.S. Medicare agent contacted Frank Johnson to verify his participation in the agency’s hospice service program. Frank said he hadn’t signed up for the program. The agent said someone had been charging his account for hospice services for more than six months. Frank recalled that he’d responded to a text message, ostensibly from Medicare, saying that he could receive free cooking, cleaning and home health care. He provided his Medicare number, but he never received the services. Frank and Medicare were victims of hospice fraud.

Frank’s fictitious story is representative of a real scam, according to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Fraudsters are committing identity theft and hospice fraud by stealing Medicare numbers of individuals to bill the Medicare hospice program for services that the agency never provided.