A reader wanted to alert people who use the CVS Pharmacy in Pacific Palisades of a scam. He said, “I received four phone calls in the last 24 hours from someone claiming to be from the CVS Pharmacy in Pacific Palisades.
“The female caller has my last name and asks to update my ‘Medicare’ information.”
He said the voice has an accent, possibly from the Philippines. The caller identification area codes for two of the calls were from Orange and Santa Ana, California.
“I spoke to a pharmacist at CVS Palisades who assured me the calls were not made by anyone at the Palisades Pharmacy, especially because one of the calls was before 8 a.m.” the reader said and added that the pharmacist was not aware of any other Palisades CVS Pharmacy clients who had received similar calls.
The pharmacist felt the calls were attempts by someone to obtain information for illicit purposes.
The reader said, “I hope anyone else receiving such calls will avoid providing any personal information and becoming a victim of this scam operation.”
Another reader also said she had received the calls and said, “They are trying to get people to give them their Medicare card numbers. Be careful.” The reader said they had her personal information, including her name, address, even her primary care doctor’s name.
Remember never give personal information, including social security numbers, Medicare info, birthdates or other information to anyone over the phone.
If you are not sure if it is a scam, hang up and call CVS back – or whoever claims be calling you.
This happened to me as well. The call came from an area code up North. She asked to verify my Medicare number and I said no. She said we are on a recorded line and I said how do I now that? She knew my primary care doctors name and some medication I was on. She asked me 3 more times and I said I would not give out any information and hung up. I also called CVS to see if they were calling people and she was not aware of these calls. Very scary that she knew my doctors name. She also has an accent. I wonder if there was a breech of security with CVS files? This is he phone number that came up on my caller ID on July 8th.1-341-217-5925.
Thank you for posting this story.
Sharon Piehl
This happened to me as well! But no accent, and she said she wanted to update my prescription information. I don’t have any prescriptions at CVS. Immediately hung up and called the pharmacy. They had not called me. Thank you for posting this story!