Recently, a savvy reader, Jerry Nicholas, called and relayed the following story:

He’s a 71-year-old retiree. His wife is 75.

One day not too long ago, he got a phone call from a gentleman who sounded like he was from India. The man claimed to be from Medicare. He told Nicholas that Medicare needed to “verify” Nicholas’ Social Security number and bank account information in order for the Nicholases to continue receiving their Medicare benefits.

Nicholas is no dummy. He knows not to give his Social Security number to some random person who calls and asks for it. Instead, Nicholas asked the caller to tell him the number, and Nicholas would tell the caller if it was correct. The man refused. Nicholas hung up on him.

Three weeks later, Nicholas got the call again. He went through the same rigmarole with the new caller, only this time he decided to play along a little bit to see what he could find out about who was calling. When the new caller refused to let Nicholas tell him whether he had the correct Social Security number, Nicholas asked to speak with a supervisor.

Another man got on the phone, who Nicholas described as also being foreign-sounding. The man said yes, it was all true, that Nicholas needed to tell them his Social Security number and bank account information to keep his Medicare card from being canceled. Nicholas asked the “supervisor” for his telephone number. The man told him it’s on the back of Nicholas’ Medicare card. Nicholas said there is no number on the back of the card and asked the man what city he was calling from. The man hung up.

This time, before making any other calls, Nicholas used the *69 feature on his telephone to find out what phone number the man had called from.

He found out the number was 399-350-4056. Turns out, people in a lot of places have had the same experience with callers from that number.

Stew Grabel, ombudsman for the Pima Council on Aging, said such scenarios are quite common and that he and the council are constantly warning people to watch out for calls such as these.

“Make sure you confirm that whoever you’re speaking to is legitimate before you discuss personal information,” he said.

Nicholas said he called the police and filed a complaint.

“Social Security and Medicare do not do business this way,” he said, noting that any legitimate interaction he’s ever had with Medicare has been initiated through the mail.

Jack Cheevers, a Medicare spokesman based in San Francisco, said the Nicholas experience “sounds like an out and out fraud. He’s wise to have hung up on those folks.”

“We have that information. We don’t call people to verify it,” he said.

People should know that Medicare does not call people to try and sell them products or threaten to cancel their cards, he said.

Most phone interaction is initiated by beneficiaries who are calling Medicare with specific questions, Cheevers said.

He added that Nicholas was wise to have called the police and recommended that anyone else who has that or similar experiences should also call the Health and Human Services fraud hotline at 1-800-HHS-TIPS (1-800-447-8477).