Okay; I KNOW it’s the company that handles my prescriptions. I KNOW it’s not a phishing attempt because they send me snail-mails all the time. They want me to sign up for medications by mail. Frankly, I’m just too goddamned busy to figure out how to safeguard $1000 worth of medications sitting outside my front door for several hours. I can probably do it, but I work in the same place as Maxwell Smart, and they cannot leave something for me at the front desk.
But in general: when someone calls me and asks to talk about my personal medical records and then asks me to prove I am who he thinks I am, I say, “Blow me.” Okay; it was more like, “I will not discuss my medical information over the phone. I have your literature; I can call YOU, and then you can require that I prove my identity. But until you work out a way that guarantees me that YOU are who you say you are, I’m not going to talk to you. Got it?” Only less confrontational, with more hemming and hawwing. But that’s the gist.
The problem I have is that it’s a slilppery slope. The more people get into the habit of divulging information to unknown people over the phone, the more likely the chance that Bad Things Will Happen.
So, am I being a dick? (Just limited to this particular issue).
Any unsolicited call is unlikely to get anything other than a whistleblast from me (seriously… not the FIRST time, but they get warned that any further calls from their company get the whistle), so I think you’re being awfully nice to talk to them at all.
I don’t think it makes you a dick. Next time just ask them if there is a confirmation # or code you need to give to them when you call the number on the back of the card. Or tell them to take you off their solicitation list.
The benefit manager is calling you because the company who pays for your benefits (employer?) most likely requires them to make an attempt to get their customers to try mail order service to save everyone money. It isn’t just you who saves that way, the company that provides you medical insurance saves too.
Sometimes if too many people are using the local pharmacy and not taking advantage of money saving options, companies reduce the benefits they offer their employees (higher copays, not approving certain medications).
Personally, I wouldn’t answer questions from an unsolicited caller either. I already use mail order, but if I didn’t I’d just call the customer service number on my card or go to their website to get more info and ask them to remove my name from their list. Easy stuff.
I would never do it. I suppose that I’d be willing to discuss some sort of maintenance program for a chronic illness. I used to get calls from my insurance company about their asthma program, before I politely explained that my attack that landed me in the emergency room was a one-time-in-a-couple-of-decades fluke as a result of severe flu.
But reveal personal identifying information over the phone to someone who called me? No, no, no, and hell no. Don’t they know that basic identity theft protection has been drilled into some percentage of the population at this point?
I once got a call claiming to be from a guy who worked in our auto insurance agent’s office. He wanted to know if we’d be interested in looking at changing our homeowner’s insurance to them and getting a discount on all policies. Sure, why not, send us a quote. “Oh, I’ll need your SSNs.” Oh, guess again, insurance boy.
I said I wasn’t going to give him any such thing and got off the phone. Then I e-mailed the agent. If this wasn’t his guy, then someone was using his name (and knew that we were his customers) to try to conduct a scam. If it WAS somebody from his office, then it was a really dumbass move.
It turned out to be just a dumbass move. But at least the head agent agreed that it was so.
I think I’d use exactly the words used in the OP to explain why they weren’t getting any information from me. Less confrontational my ass. They need a whack with a clue-by-four.
No, not at all. It’s your personal information, and how it’s disseminated is your prerogative. Actually, your speech is a lot more polite and certainly more explanatory than I’d be.
Not in my book, Chester. I work in a call center taking calls for a “financial institution.” Every damn day I have to handhold some poor goober who answered an e-mail or a text message or even a phone call and now needs our help putting his life back together. I’m tellin’ ya’, it’s no damn fun listening to a 64-year-old man sob on the phone because he just didn’t know any better. And that’s just about money. Can you imagine the chaos in your life if somebody used your identity to steal drugs? Your drugs!? Do not feel bad about protecting your privacy.
You really don’t need to put much effort into what you say. “I’m not interested” covers it well enough. If you want to add “and I’m surprised that anyone would talk about their medications over the phone with a stranger,” that’s extra.
I work for a company where we routinely have to call existing clients to discuss information relating to their business with us. Our rules are that before discussing any account-specific information, we have to verify we are speaking with the correct person, outbound call or not. This makes perfect sense - after all, what if the wrong number is dialled, or we give details to a guy’s wife where she had no idea he was planning to retire?
We have a password system whereby we do not see the client’s password, but we can ask the client for 3 characters from the password which the computer can verify. This seems fine, as by giving these 3 characters you’re not revealing any information that could then be used by a fraudster. However, for clients who do not have this password I’ll generally ask them to confirm some other information. A surprisingly large number do not even question this (though nearly all the time, the call is not unsolicited, so I am able to introduce myself with “Hi, this is Dead Cat calling from XXXX, we were discussing some business you had with us earlier on today” or something similar). For those that do not want to give the information, I simply say that I cannot discuss any details with them, but they can call back on any of our numbers and ask for me.
Nope, not unreasonable. Heck, I wish more people were that careful, and more companies thought before they asked stuff like that.
I was once shopping and when I went to pay with my credit card, a message came up that the person at the register had to call in about the card. So the cashier calls, talks for a bit, then asks to see my ID. Then the person at the other end of the phone asks to talk to me. It’s someone from my credit card issuer. They had identified what might be an attempt to use my card. Ok. I appreciate that. But then she starts asking me to give her a list of where I’ve used the card recently. And to verify mother’s maiden name, and my SSN, and and and.
Excuse me? I’m standing in a store, in line, talking on their phone. I’m NOT giving out that info where everyone in the area can hear it. And you do reallize, don’t you, that I’ve now been blocking this register for over 5 minutes. The store can’t be happy about that either.