Several dentists have notified CDA Practice Support or their neighborhood dental societies of scams concentrated on their dental practices. Dentists inside the San Francisco Bay Area, South Lake Tahoe, and Central Valley file receiving calls from folks that declare to be DEA retailers, provide badge numbers, and proceed to make demands. The callers tell the dentists they can be arrested if the needs aren’t met. One dentist suggested that the caller told him his DEA license changed into being used to assist delivery “masses of hundreds of dollars’ really worth of drugs throughout the Mexico border.”
The DEA has confirmed that the calls are scams and that the scammers are using falsified telephone numbers that mimic valid DEA numbers. Similar scams have made the rounds formerly in California. In July 2018, criminals posed as DEA personnel and centered small companies, including dental practices, as part of an extortion rip-off. In March of this 12 months, the DEA warned in a press launch of an “alarming increase of rip-off calls” that threaten prison motion or demand immediate payment of fines. “DEA employees will work in no way contact practitioners or contributors of the general public with the aid of phone to call for cash or any form of fee.
DEA will now not request any personal or sensitive information over the cellphone. Notification of valid research or felony movement is made through a professional letter or in man or woman,” the DEA states in the launch. Any DEA registrant who is contacted by using people claiming to paintings for the organization and annoying or asking for money or threatening to drop the registrant’s DEA license is urged to report the decision the use of the DEA’s online extortion rip-off document form, available at the business enterprise’s Diversion Control Division internet site. The one-web page document gives registrants the choice of receiving a callback from DEA personnel approximately the incident.
DEA registrants with questions might also contact the DEA Registration Helpline at 800.882.9539.
In a 2d scam said by using as a minimum of three dentists to the San Gabriel Valley Dental Society, callers posing as personnel of Southern California Edison, the electric supply agency, are contacting dental places of work in try to acquire cash and private statistics. To help dentists avoid falling for this rip-off, CDA Regulatory Compliance Analyst Teresa Pichay advises that they teach staff to confirm a caller’s credentials and records.
This includes contacting the employer using the employer’s internet site records earlier than supplying exercise records to the person. Another desirable exercise is limiting the quantity of those authorized to region orders and pay invoices. Additionally, the validity of the range at the smartphone’s caller ID ought to no longer be assumed. “Scammers need an instantaneous response. Don’t give it to them,” Pichai says. “Take a deep breath, research it, then act as a result.”
