Scam Alert – Unsolicited telephone calls offering “free” Med Alert device

5/30/13
Residents across the country are receiving telephone calls from telemarketers selling a device called “Med Alert”. The target audience for this scam are seniors who potentially will respond for the “free” device and provide their banking information for the service not knowing it is a health care product scam.

If you know of someone who has been a victim of this type of crime and provided “financial” information please have them contact their local police department to file a report. If you just received the telephone call or email, do not respond, there is no crime unless a financial transaction has occurred.
You can block the telephone number and put the email address in your spam folder to stop receiving unsolicited offers from that email address.

Information published in the Consumers Digest has been provided on these scams. Please pass this information to your neighbors, friends and especially seniors.

Telemarketers targeted seniors in medical-alert scam
Federal Trade Commission exposed another company for allegedly ripping off senior citizens.

FTC says telemarketers for Instant Response Systems pressured seniors to purchase medical-alert services.
In some cases, FTC alleges that seniors who declined the offer were sent a medical-alert device anyway, so Instant Response System could try to shake down those seniors for payment.

According to the complaint, Instant Response Systems created bogus billing invoices and threatened seniors with legal action if they didn’t pay for the device.

At FTC’s request, a U.S. district court ordered Instant Response Systems to cease operations. Instant Response Systems also does business as Response Systems, B.B. Mercantile, Medical Alert Industrial and Medical Alert Services, FTC says.

The regulatory agency charged Instant Response Systems with making illegal misrepresentations and violating the Unordered Merchandise Statute for sending consumers products that they didn’t order.

FTC’s complaint is the latest example of why seniors must be on guard against the threat of scammers at all times, as we reported in “The Fleecing of America’s Elderly” at Consumers Digest.com.

FTC - Scam Alert "Med Alert' free device