An alert for older Americans.

Open enrollment season for Medicare, the health insurance program for people age 65 and older, starts Wednesday.

Eligible seniors have until December 7th to shop around and make changes to their Medicare, health and part D prescription drug plans.

It's also the time of year when crooks get creative, posing as Medicare insurance providers, trying to trap folks with fake promises of free gifts and limited time offers.

And if you fall for it, it could suck more than money from your wallet.

It could compromise your identity.

Recently, I spoke with a spokesperson from the Better Business Bureau to learn what to look out for.

Let's talk about Medicare enrollment and some of the scams associated with that.

Tell us about this.

And it's a complicated process anyway, so it's probably easy to get confused over what's legitimate and what's not.

It is.

And for many years, the BBC has heard from seniors reporting any number of scams involving Medicare back to where issuing new Medicare cards.

So we need you to give us your Medicare number so that we can send that to you or to you are going to get a free insert piece of equipment here, a knee brace, a back brace, wireless blood sugar reader, those types of things.

And all we need is your Medicare number.

And they're going to try and bill Medicare for that.

And of course, you can't, you're not going to get that information.

You're not going to get that kind of thing paid for unless your doctor has prescribed it.

Right.

And anyone calling on the phone saying, I'm with Medicare and we want to update your information and you have not reached out to them.

That's the red flag, right?

They don't initiate a call.

You have to initiate.

Exactly.

And they warn about that all over their website that medicare.gov.

I mean, they are there for people to reach out to.

We have heard people complain of receiving numerous calls claiming I'm with Medicare.

I'm with Medicare, and then you've got the supplemental plans, and open enrollment is going on.

And there are numerous ones out there, and there are rules and laws.

Some of these companies are not allowed to reach out to you and solicit it to try and sell you their product.

It's up to you to choose, and it can be daunting.

But if you call, if you go to the Medicare.gov website, that can be an excellent way to start.

Yeah.

What do those typically look like?

I mean, is it about prescription or what is it?

They're really pushing any number of things.

A lot of times they're just trying to get your Medicare number so that if they're with a company that is trying to sell durable equipment, for instance, and then they end up getting paid, they may not end up getting paid, but they also just want to end up with your personal information, which can lead to ID theft, which is another quickly growing crime.

Every year it goes on, and that can be tied in with any number of scams.

A long time ago, your Medicare number used to be your Social Security number.

Wow.

So that would be really bad.

People hated that because they would carry that card around with them in their wallet.

Well, and that's the key to stealing your identity.

That and your date of birth.

Right.

So they've changed that, which is an excellent step forward.

But if something just doesn't sound quite right, I don't care what they're saying to you whether they're plying you with, we're going to send you all this wonderful stuff for free to frightening you into someone to stolen your Medicare account.

You better give us your information.

None of it's true.

And if you're not sure, do contact Medicare yourself.

Yeah, or the baby, right?

Yes, we would love people to report any of these scams to the BTB Scam Tracker site.

You can find that on our site at npr.org.

There's a place to click.

It asks for your information, your age group and so forth, because we do categorize that for our Baby Scam Tracker report annually.

And the type of scam, whether you fell for it or not.

We're not going to publish your personal information, but it can help warn others to not fall for these scams.

So we invite people to go to that website.

So as you compare your Medicare coverage options, remember, don't give personal information to someone who contacts you unexpectedly and claims to be from Medicare.

Don't be fooled by your caller ID.

Callers can spoof or fake a government number that looks official, and also avoid clicking on suspicious links.

And also, don't let scammers talk you into choosing a specific plan.

Medicare legitimately does not endorse a specific plan.