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posted by martyb on Wednesday April 17 2019, @09:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the you-may-qualify-for-a-FREE-jail-cell dept.

In what will likely be quite welcome news to irritated consumers, authorities in the United States have broken up a $1.2 billion Medicare fraud ring that has been relentlessly pounding consumer phones since at least mid-2018.

The operation consisted of

doctors, telemarketers and owners of medical equipment companies [who] peddled medically unnecessary orthotic braces to hundreds of thousands of elderly and disabled patients.

The basic approach of the scam was to get a beneficiary to provide (or just verify) personal or Medicare information. Then whether requested or not, needed or not, they were sent medical brace after medical brace and Medicare charged for it all using the beneficiary's information. (Detailed graphic of the scam here)

Prosecutors accused so-called durable medical equipment (DME) companies of paying kickbacks and bribes in exchange for referrals by doctors working with fraudulent telemedicine companies for back, knee, shoulder and wrist braces that patients did not need.

The scheme allegedly involved the use of call centers in the Philippines and throughout Latin America, with proceeds laundered through offshore shell companies and used to buy exotic cars, yachts and luxury real estate.

Charges were brought against 130 medical equipment companies that submitted over $1.7 Billion in claims of which more than $900 million had been paid.

Authorities identified the largest alleged individual scheme as a US$454 million fraud run by Florida residents Creaghan Harry, Lester Stockett and Elliot Loewenstern, respectively the owner, chief executive and marketing vice president of call centers and telemedicine companies.

[...] [U.S. Attorney Craig] Carpenito also announced charges against New Jersey residents Neal Williamsky and Nadia Levit, who own approximately 25 DME companies, over their alleged roles in a separate US$150 million scheme.

Lawyers for Williamsky and Levit lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Lawyers for Harry, Loewenstern and Stockett could not immediately be located, and attempts to reach those defendants by phone were unsuccessful.

No doubt they quit taking calls from those not in their contacts list due to spam calls.

The HHS also issued an alert warning people of the scam.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by RandomFactor on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:44PM (1 child)

    by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:44PM (#831010) Journal

    They've been tormenting my phone for months.
     
    They like to spoof local exchanges (in other words, if you number starts with 555-, the number they are calling from is a random 555- number) as that is intended to make you think it is someone local so you'll be more likely to answer.
     
    It's a PITA, but if you aren't in my contact list I've given up on answering.

    Same thing happened ten or fifteen years ago with debt collector calls for some lady in Mississipi (I'm not IN Mississipi and never heard of this person, or anyone close) no matter how many times I explained they kept calling. I quit answering. It took years before they gave up.

    If this behavior seems to stop for a year or so I'll go back to answering random calls.

    --
    В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Oakenshield on Wednesday April 17 2019, @04:48PM

    by Oakenshield (4900) on Wednesday April 17 2019, @04:48PM (#831143)

    I'd like to see unethical debt collectors drawn and quartered. Years ago I was wrongly hounded by a debt collector for months upon months upon months early in the morning, all during the day and late at night. It was nothing less than concerted harassment. They were looking for someone with a name similar to my then 9 year old son. Despite telling them over and over that there was nobody that lived at my address by that name they called constantly. I had to threaten them with legal action and a referral to the State Attorney General's Office to get them to stop. Years later I was hounded again by debt collectors looking for my ex-wife. We had been divorced for 7 years. Debt collectors can suck the thorny cock of Satan from deep within the bowels of Hell.

    These days those fuckheads have a much harder time harassing the innocent thanks to technology on our end.