re: #261 Hecuba’s daughter

Annoying start to the day — now that I’m retired, I try to sleep in (really late!) but got an 8AM call on my cell from a 619 number. The person at the other end identified themselves as being from Medicare, told me that I was going to receive an updated card, and then started asking me to confirm information to ensure card was correct; they had correct name, address — all publicly available. I realized this was too suspicious and finally said my information has not changed from the last card they sent and hung up. Even that was probably too much to provide them, but at least I did not reveal anything other than what was already public knowledge — in any case I went online and discovered that these were telemarketers.

I should have known better.

We should take this as a valuable caution: Medicare has replaced/will be replacing everybody’s cards, but AFAIK, does this only by mail - not the telephone. Investing in an answering machine to screen out telemarketing calls (I’ve noticed very few leave messages on an automated system) might be a wise retirement-account decision.

There are also, depending on what state you live in, “official” “Do Not Call” registries - which are *supposed* to keep your numbers off telemarketers’ lists: but which I’ve found (in NY anyway) is a supposition not supported by reality….