1. Why the calls started when they did
Two dates explain almost all of it. Under the federal marketing rules, insurers and agents may begin marketing next plan year’s products on October 1. Annual Enrollment, when you can actually change anything, opened on October 15. That leaves a fortnight in which the whole industry may advertise but nobody can enrol, followed by eight weeks in which every carrier and every agency is competing for the same decisions.1
The fraudulent callers work the same calendar, and for a good reason: this is the one time of year when a call about Medicare is plausible. You are expecting letters about your plan. You may genuinely be shopping. A cold call in March is obviously odd; the same call in October sounds almost reasonable. That is the whole trick.4
Complaints about Medicare scam calls are up about 40 percent year over year
That figure comes from the International Association of Better Business Bureaus and was reported in January 2026, so it describes the year as a whole rather than this season specifically. The direction is what matters: this is getting worse, not better, and the people making these calls are getting better at sounding official.
2. What an agent may and may not lawfully do
This is the part most people do not know, and it is the single most useful thing in this article. A licensed agent is not allowed to call you out of the blue. Federal rules prohibit unsolicited contact with Medicare beneficiaries, including telephone solicitation, robocalls, texts and voicemail. Permission has to come first.2
Which means an unsolicited sales call about Medicare is either from somebody breaking the rules or from somebody who was never bound by them in the first place. Neither is a good start to a relationship with the person handling your health coverage.
| Can an agent do this? | Under the federal marketing rules |
|---|---|
| Call you when you never asked to be contacted | No. Unsolicited telephone solicitation of beneficiaries is prohibited. |
| Send you an unsolicited text message or voicemail drop | No. Texts, robocalls and voicemail fall under the same prohibition. |
| Call you back because you filled in a form or asked for a quote | Yes. You initiated the contact, which is the condition that permits the call. |
| Market 2027 plans to you before October 15 | Yes, from October 1 — but you cannot enrol until the 15th. |
| Pass your details to another marketing company | Only with your prior express written consent, under CMS rules. |
| Turn up at your door without an appointment | No. Unsolicited door-to-door contact is not permitted either. |
3. How your number got into circulation
Almost nobody is called at random. The number was collected somewhere, and in a great many cases it was then sold. The usual entry points are ordinary and forgettable: an online form promising a Medicare quote, a reply card returned to a television advertisement, a free-gift or sweepstake entry at an event, a callback request on a comparison site.3
Once it is collected, the detail travels. Beneficiary data has been bought and sold between marketing middlemen often enough that the Senate Finance Committee raised it in 2023, and CMS now requires prior express written consent before one third-party marketing organization may share beneficiary data with another for marketing or enrollment. The rule is a real improvement. It does not retrieve the data that already moved.
A familiar-looking caller ID means nothing
Spoofing a number so it appears to come from your own area code is cheap and routine, because it raises the chance you answer. Treat the number on your screen as decoration. What matters is who is on the line and what they ask you for.
4. Telling a licensed agent from someone fishing
Set aside the tone of voice, which tells you very little — a professional-sounding caller is not necessarily a legitimate one, and a nervous one is not necessarily a fraud. Look instead at what they do and what they ask for. The pattern is consistent.
| A licensed agent | Somebody fishing |
|---|---|
| Gives you a full name, agency and license number without being pushed | Gives a first name only, or a company name that changes if you ask twice |
| Is calling because you contacted them | Cannot say how they got your number, or says you “requested information” you do not remember requesting |
| Already has your basic details and does not need your Medicare number to talk | Wants your Medicare number, Social Security number or bank details early in the call |
| Is happy for you to call back on a published number | Pushes to finish it now, today, before something expires |
| Explains trade-offs, including where a plan would not suit you | Describes everything as free, with no downside mentioned |
| Can tell you which carriers they represent | Claims to be “from Medicare” or to be calling on Medicare’s behalf |
The clearest single signal is urgency. Nothing about Medicare has to be decided on a phone call you did not expect. Enrollment runs until December 7, your coverage does not lapse while you think, and a genuine agent will have no difficulty with you saying you would like to call them back.
Not sure who called?
Bring us the number and what they asked for. We will tell you what we can see.
5. What to say when the phone rings
You do not owe an unexpected caller a conversation, and you certainly do not owe them politeness at your own expense. But if you would rather not simply hang up, there is a short sequence that resolves nearly every call quickly.
- Ask for their full name, their agency and their license number. A licensed agent gives all three without hesitation. The hesitation itself is the answer.
- Ask how they got your number. A legitimate caller can tell you — you filled in a form, you asked for a quote, you are an existing client. A vague answer is a complete answer.
- Do not confirm anything. Not your Medicare number, not your date of birth, not even that the person they asked for lives there. Confirming details you did not volunteer is how a thin file becomes a convincing one.
- Say you will call back, then look them up. If they are real, the number will check out. If the call was a fishing trip, there is usually nothing to find.
- Hang up if pressure appears. Urgency is not a sales technique in this field, it is a warning sign. Nothing expires tonight.
And if you realize mid-call that you have already given something away, that is worth acting on rather than being embarrassed about. Note the date and what you said, watch your Medicare summary notices for claims you do not recognize, and report it.
6. How to check a license in two minutes
This takes about two minutes and it works on anyone, including us. Florida licenses are public records and there is no reason for an agent to be coy about theirs.
- Get the license number and the exact name on it. Agents are licensed as individuals, so the name should be a person, not only an agency.
- Look it up through the Florida Department of Financial Services licensee search. It will show you whether the license exists, what it covers and whether it is current.
- Check the agency has a real address. A local office you could physically visit is harder to fake than a phone number and a website.
- Be suspicious of anyone who objects to any of this. A licensed agent expects to be checked. It is a normal part of the job, not an insult.
For the record, ours: JCKC Financial Services, Jacky Catule, Florida license W203612, NPN 17368280, at 3692 W. Oakland Park Blvd. in Lauderdale Lakes. Those are in this article so you can run exactly the check described above on us before you ever call.
7. Where to report it, and where to get free help
Reporting feels futile and is not. Individual complaints are how regulators find the patterns that shut down a call center, and the numbers are short.
- Unwanted telemarketing: complaints.donotcall.gov.
- Suspected Medicare fraud: 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227), or the HHS Office of Inspector General on 1-800-447-8477.
- A licensed Florida agent behaving improperly: the Florida Department of Financial Services, which issued the license and can act on it.
And if what you actually want is advice from somebody with nothing to sell, Florida’s SHINE program — Serving Health Insurance Needs of Elders — provides free, unbiased counseling on 1-800-963-5337. We point people there regularly. An informed client is a better client than a confused one, and it costs us nothing to say so.5
8. A South Florida lens
South Florida gets a heavier share of this than most places, and the reasons are unflattering but worth naming. The region has one of the largest concentrations of Medicare beneficiaries in the country, which makes it commercially attractive. It also has a long history as a center of healthcare fraud enforcement, which means the infrastructure for this kind of thing is local rather than distant.
Language adds a second layer. A caller who switches to Creole or Spanish can sound like an ally rather than a salesperson, and for somebody doing this in their second language the signals that something is off are harder to catch. That cuts both ways: it is exactly why we work in four languages, and exactly why we would rather you checked our license number than took our word for anything. The test in this article is the right one to apply to everybody who calls you about Medicare, including us.
9. Frequently asked questions
Why am I suddenly getting so many Medicare calls?
Two things happened in quick succession. Insurers and agents are permitted to begin marketing next year’s plans on October 1, and Annual Enrollment itself opened on October 15. That combination turns a two-month stretch into the busiest selling season in the industry. On top of the legitimate activity, Medicare-themed scam calls rise at the same time of year for exactly the same reason: the callers know you are expecting to hear about Medicare.
Is it legal for an insurance agent to cold-call me about Medicare?
No. Federal rules at 42 CFR 422.2264 prohibit unsolicited contact of Medicare beneficiaries, and that covers telephone solicitation, robocalls, text messages and voicemail. A call is only permitted where you consented to be contacted or you initiated the contact yourself. If you did not ask to be called, the call should not be happening.
Does Medicare itself ever call me?
Not to sell you anything, and not out of the blue to ask for your personal information. Medicare communicates by mail for almost everything. If somebody calls claiming to be from Medicare and wants your Medicare number, your Social Security number or your bank details, that is not Medicare. Hang up and, if you want to check, call 1-800-MEDICARE yourself using the number on your own card.
How did they get my phone number?
Usually because it was collected and then sold. Filling in an online form for a Medicare quote, responding to a television advertisement, entering a sweepstake or asking for a callback can all put your details into circulation. CMS now requires prior express written consent before one third-party marketing organization may pass beneficiary data to another for marketing, but data that moved before those rules, or in breach of them, is still out there.
The caller ID showed a local number. Does that mean it is local?
No. Caller ID is trivially easy to fake, and spoofing a number with your own area code is one of the oldest tricks in the business precisely because it raises the answer rate. A familiar-looking number tells you nothing at all about who is actually calling.
What should I never give out on an unexpected call?
Your Medicare number, your Social Security number, your bank or card details, and your date of birth. A legitimate agent you did not contact has no business asking for any of them on a first unsolicited call. Your Medicare number is especially worth protecting, because it can be used to bill Medicare fraudulently in your name.
How do I check whether an agent is really licensed in Florida?
Ask for their full name and license number, then look it up yourself through the Florida Department of Financial Services licensee search. A real agent will give you the number without hesitation, because it is public information and they expect to be checked. Hesitation or deflection is itself the answer.
Where do I report a Medicare scam call?
For unwanted telemarketing generally, file at complaints.donotcall.gov. For something that looks like Medicare fraud, call 1-800-MEDICARE on 1-800-633-4227 or the HHS Office of Inspector General on 1-800-447-8477. Reporting matters more than it feels like it does, because patterns in complaints are what gets a call center shut down.
Is there somewhere I can get help that is not selling me anything?
Yes. Florida’s SHINE program — Serving Health Insurance Needs of Elders — is the state’s federally funded counseling service, and it is free, unbiased and not paid to place you in any plan. The number is 1-800-963-5337. We mention it in our own articles because an informed client is better for us than a confused one.
You are an insurance agency. Are you not part of the problem?
We are a Medicare marketing entity bound by exactly the rules described above, and it would be dishonest to write this as though the industry were somebody else. The difference we would point to is checkable rather than rhetorical: a named licensed agent, a license number you can verify with the state, a physical office in Lauderdale Lakes, and no calls to anyone who did not ask to hear from us. Apply the tests in this article to us as well.
10. Sources
- 42 CFR 422.2263 — marketing of next plan year products may begin on October 1 each year. Annual Enrollment runs October 15 to December 7.
- 42 CFR 422.2264 — unsolicited contact of beneficiaries is prohibited, including telephone solicitation, robocalls, text messages and voicemail. Contact is permitted where the beneficiary consented or initiated it.
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services marketing rules — prior express written consent is required before beneficiary data collected by one third-party marketing organization may be shared with another for marketing or enrollment. The reselling of beneficiary data was raised by the Senate Finance Committee in 2023.
- International Association of Better Business Bureaus, reported by the New York Times, January 2026 — complaints about Medicare scam calls to Better Business Bureaus rose 40 percent year over year.
- Medicare.gov — Medicare does not make unsolicited calls to sell products or request personal information unless you requested contact. Florida SHINE, the state’s SHIP program, offers free unbiased counseling on 1-800-963-5337. Report unwanted telemarketing at complaints.donotcall.gov and suspected fraud to 1-800-633-4227 or the HHS Office of Inspector General on 1-800-447-8477.
Please note: This article is general information about Medicare marketing rules and common fraud patterns, not legal advice and not advice about any particular plan or caller. JCKC Financial Services is itself a Medicare marketing entity subject to the rules described above. If you believe you have been defrauded, contact 1-800-MEDICARE or the HHS Office of Inspector General directly.