Powder River Examiner -

By Pat Ridenour

Scammers are still using the phone to garner information from you about your New Medicare Card. They are using a LOCAL prefix (436) to make you think it is someone in the area calling. I have been dodging the calls by checking the number by Caller ID on my phone. This morning they called using a local number and name of an acquaintance. I picked up the phone and was not connected immediately. That is a clue in itself that it is a ROBO CALL. If you have to wait several seconds to hear the party calling, it could very well be a scammer calling. I said "Hello" three times, thinking she was multi-tasking, and started to hang up and then I heard a foreign woman’s voice asking if I had received my new Medicare Card. I immediately hung up the phone. Do NOT talk to these people. They are trying to steal information to use for illegal uses, most likely to bill charges to your Medicare number that you did not use! If you have talked to these callers in the past, please check your Medicare billing for services you did not receive and report it to Medicare! If you need help, call the Senior Center at 406-436-2635 and ask to be put on a list to see Linda Wolff who deals with that kind of problem in our area, or you can reach Linda at 406-234-8028.

Previous calls on my phone from scammers have been using the 436 prefix code with numbers that start with a number OTHER THAN a 2---. It might be a number like 436-5678. On Caller ID the announced number only says 'Broadus MT'. Likewise, 427 numbers begin with the number 5.

In the back of the Range Phone Book (just before the Yellow Pages) is a listing of landline phone numbers in our area and those that have digits other than those starting with the number 2 on the last four numbers. There are only three numbers listed. Others are most likely scammers.