Scam Day
Today seems to be my day to have people attempting scams.
The first scam involved one of those "This is not a Bill" bills from Connecticare, notifying me that they would pick up 79.65, but that I still owed 95.00 for my January 11, 2005 visit to Doctor-Whom-I-Am-Going-To-Slaughter, but who will be dubbed, for purposes of this entry, as Doctor Slaughter.
The thing is, I did not visit Doctor Slaughter on January 11, 2005. I have never visited him. When she was alive, my aunt, with whom I lived, was one of his patients. I was marked on her records as next of kin.
And now he is billing Connecticare in my name for a visit that never took place. And Connecticare is denying most of the claim, and telling me that I owe him.
I called Connecticare to inform them that there had never BEEN any such visit. They wanted to know if I had told the doctor's office this. Um...no, I hadn't, because I figured that the doctor's office was cognizant of the fraud while Connecticare wasn't. Nevertheless, I did call Slaughter's office after speaking to the insurance company. His office was closed. Surprise, surprise.
Then I got this charming thing in e-mail. The whole thing is so stupid and so badly constructed (in a stiff "I can't speak quite properly because I am foreign" style) that I wonder that anyone falls for this nonsense. It's a variant of the Nigerian scam, only this one is allegedly based in the Netherlands and involves me being someone's next of kin, although I am not Dutch and have no relatives in any of the Low Countries.
It's not a big deal--huge amounts aren't involved--and yet...I really don't like people thinking that I'm such an idiot that I wouldn't notice.
The first scam involved one of those "This is not a Bill" bills from Connecticare, notifying me that they would pick up 79.65, but that I still owed 95.00 for my January 11, 2005 visit to Doctor-Whom-I-Am-Going-To-Slaughter, but who will be dubbed, for purposes of this entry, as Doctor Slaughter.
The thing is, I did not visit Doctor Slaughter on January 11, 2005. I have never visited him. When she was alive, my aunt, with whom I lived, was one of his patients. I was marked on her records as next of kin.
And now he is billing Connecticare in my name for a visit that never took place. And Connecticare is denying most of the claim, and telling me that I owe him.
I called Connecticare to inform them that there had never BEEN any such visit. They wanted to know if I had told the doctor's office this. Um...no, I hadn't, because I figured that the doctor's office was cognizant of the fraud while Connecticare wasn't. Nevertheless, I did call Slaughter's office after speaking to the insurance company. His office was closed. Surprise, surprise.
Then I got this charming thing in e-mail. The whole thing is so stupid and so badly constructed (in a stiff "I can't speak quite properly because I am foreign" style) that I wonder that anyone falls for this nonsense. It's a variant of the Nigerian scam, only this one is allegedly based in the Netherlands and involves me being someone's next of kin, although I am not Dutch and have no relatives in any of the Low Countries.
It's not a big deal--huge amounts aren't involved--and yet...I really don't like people thinking that I'm such an idiot that I wouldn't notice.