“Free DNA test” Medicare scammer talks to a robot named Whitey Whitebeard

Hello All!

Sorry it has been SO LONG since the last post. There has been so much going on with the Jolly Roger service! I’m looking forward to updating all of you! The biggest new by far is that we were mentioned on the Today Show! Some of you may be reading this because of that appearance. If so, then welcome to the service!

In the meantime, here is a call from a Medicare scammer to our favorite elderly male robot named Whitey Whitebeard. This is an interesting free “DNA screening” test where Medicare will pay for the test. I assume, like most Medicare scams, this is a way to entice the elderly to give their Medicare number to a telemarketer. Once they do that, the scammer can bill Medicare for services, tests, and medical equipment. As usual, a simple search of “medicare saliva dna test telemarketer” returns a lot of results about this scam and various combinations of it.

While listening to this call, I have the sense that the telemarketer thinks she is working for a legitimate company with a noble mission. I’ve heard a lot of scammers. She’s either really good, or she doesn’t realize she’s working for a scammer.

And most exciting of all – this call demonstrates our new “artificial stupidity” where the bots tune themselves to the type of telemarketer. Whitey listens to the caller and says some things appropriate to the call, which causes the scammer to stay connected longer. In a future podcast, I’ll talk about how we did this.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this call! Thanks for listening!