BYRON, Ga. — Your first instinct when you get a phone call from the doctor's office may be to pick up the phone and answer.
However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said medical scam calls are becoming more popular these days — particularly among the elderly.
David Sexton wasn't fooled easily, though. He hopes sharing his experience will help someone else put in his shoes.
"Other people that's diabetic, and also especially elderly people that are diabetic need to know this information," he said.
Sexton has been all over the country, including Louisiana, Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Tennessee and West Virginia.
Since August of 2000, he's called the Peach State home for 23 years.
As a former Navy man, he never expected to be targeted by scammers.
He said it happened on Tuesday. According to his phone records, Sexton received a phone call from his doctor's office.
Sexton answered it, believing it was truly his doctor.
He said the man on the other end could confirm some of his medical information and tried to tell him he qualified for medical devices. Particularly, a machine that would check his blood sugar levels without pricking his finger for blood.
But, his doctor "is not authorized to send me this particular device. It has to be done by the doctor that is handling my diabetes," he said.
Sexton said the man tried to start convincing him he was also qualified for knee braces and they would be able to ship it to him if he would provide more personal information.
After going back and forth for a while, he said, the scammer hung up.
That was odd, he thought. So, he drove to his doctor's office a few minutes away from his home to let them know what happened.
After confirming with the employees they had not called about "a qualification," Sexton went back home to tell his family about the incident.
Within a half hour of the initial call, Sexton received another one with the same caller ID.
That's when he had a hunch he was getting another scam call, so he tried to catch the person on the other end in the act.
He said he told them he was hard of hearing and he would hand the phone to his wife who could communicate better than him.
As he's on hold with the person and checking in with them to make sure they were still on the line, he drove back to his doctor's office and asked his nurse to speak directly with the person on the other end.
"I said here's my wife and she didn't say who she was," he said. "They couldn't believe it. They asked, 'He's on right now?!' I said, 'Yes!'"
Sexton said his nurse was able to shut down the caller's inquiries. That made them hang up again, he said.
13WMAZ reached out to the doctor's office that confirm the story Sexton shared.
"I feel like we should give this guy a job because he's already thinking on his feet like a trained investigator," FBI Cyber Security Agent Daniel Polk said.
Polk said the reality is that most people do not have the time, nor bandwidth, to challenge the other person on the line when they have a scam-hunch.
If a scammer knows enough research on you and/or a commonplace in your area, such as a major doctor's office in your town, they can go through a call list of people in the area, he said.
"If they put enough leg work into it, they could fake or spook a phone number," Polk said. "That means they're telling the telecom company their phone number belongs to XYZ company or doctor's office."
The FBI calls it a malicious way to present a scam because most people will trust they aren't getting scammed when they think their doctor is calling them.
One of the most effective, proactive ways you can prevent getting scammed yourself, he said, is to Google yourself.
"See what you can learn from what's already out there about us," Polk said.
That's how most of the bad guys do it, according to Polk.
Last year, the FBI reported about a thousand Georgians lost a total of $28 million in the Peach State alone.
Polk said elder fraud is popular because of their lifetime's worth of accumulated resources, assets and wealth.
If you find yourself in a situation where you feel like you might be getting scammed, Polk said don't rush to give any information.
"Criminals try to push a sense of urgency because you as an end user on the other end more suspectable when emotions heightened."
Instead, take a moment and breathe. Don't fall into the false sense of urgency the scammers try to entrap you in.
"If it's coming from a trusted source, person or company then the offer should still be good, or waiting for you, if you need to take a moment," Polk said.
Agent Polk said if you believe you're being targeted in a scam, you should report it immediately.
You can file your report at the Internet Crime Center at ic3.gov.