Halloween is thirty days away, but today is a scary day for many people who don’t even know that they should be afraid.  Today is the first day that the insurance exchanges which are at the heart of the Affordable Care Act, most often called Obamacare, will be operating.  These insurance exchanges which are operating in every state will help people sign up for insurance between now and the start of 2014 in order to comply with the requirements of the Affordable Care Act.  I have been warning you for months now about the many scams tied to the Affordable Care Act, but they will truly shifting into high gear now.  You will receive emails, texts and phone calls from people purporting to be government workers involved with the insurance exchanges who will ask you for personal information in order to sign you up for an insurance program that they tell you is mandated by law.  In some instances, the scammers have even told people that if they do not provide the information requested and sign up for a program, they will be arrested.  The truth is that if you receive a call, text or email from someone seeking to sign you up through the insurance exchanges, it is a scam with the sole intention of taking your personal information and turning you into a victim of identity theft.

TIPS

The insurance exchanges will not be reaching out to people by phone, text or email to sign people up for insurance through the Affordable Care Act so anytime you receive such a call you can be confident that it is a scam.  In fact, because it is so easy to “spoof” a telephone call so that on your caller ID the call appears legitimate, you should never give personal information to anyone who calls you, texts you or emails you because you just can’t be sure that they are who they say they are.  If you think a call, email or text requesting information might be legitimate, you should call the organization or company purporting to contact you at a telephone number that you know is accurate to find out whether or not the call was legitimate.  As for questions about the Affordable Care Act, go to the official government website https://www.healthcare.gov/  There you will find information upon which you can rely.