Here are several examples of recent scams:

Medicare Scam

A phone scam known as the “$299 Ring” asks Medicare beneficiaries for $299 and checking account information to enroll them in a fake prescription drug plan. Victims are talked into giving bank account and other personal information over the telephone.

No Medicare drug plan can ask for bank account or other personal information over the phone. No Medicare beneficiary should ever provide that kind of information to a caller.

No one can come into Medicare recipient’s home uninvited to market a Medicare drug plan. Legitimate Medicare drug plans will not ask for payment over the telephone or the Internet. They must bill for the monthly premium, typically as an automatic withdrawal from the monthly Social Security Check.

If you have a question or concern about Medicare or the drug plan, call 1-800-MEDICARE. If you believe you have been defrauded by this scam, call Medicare or the San Francisco Police Fraud Unit at 553-1521.

Jury Duty Scam

A senior receives a phone call from the county courthouse saying that because she missed jury duty that week, a warrant for her arrest was being issued. The caller says the local judge had given him a list of jury “no-shows” about to be arrested that included the senior’s name, phone number and address (which the scammer probably found in an ordinary phone book). When the senior protests, the caller asks for a Social Security number for confirmation.

It’s yet another identity theft scam that tries to scare people into divulging personal information such as birth dates, social security numbers, and credit-card account numbers. These calls may actually appear on the recipient’s caller ID to be coming from the county courthouse — a technique called “spoofing” which allows scammers to choose any telephone number they want and have it displayed on a recipient’s caller ID.

Authentic jury duty notifications, as well as “ no-show” summons, are almost always delivered by mail. Local, state, and federal judicial officials would never ask for personal information over the phone.

To report an incident of this scam, call Superior Court in or the State Attorney General’s Office at (800) 952-5225

Inheritance Scam

The “inheritance scam” goes like this . . .

A person pretending to be a lawyer or bank employee will contact the targeted victim by letter or e-mail. They claims to have information that a long-lost relative with no other known heirs has died overseas of a heart attack or perished in a car or airplane accident. The con artist will use the same last name of the victim as the last name for this long-lost relative and claim to have gone to a lot of trouble to find a next-of-kin to share millions of dollars of inheritance.

In order to receive the money from the estate, victims are told they must give confidential bank account information so the inheritance money can be wire-transferred directly to their accounts. Victims may also be asked to wire thousands of dollars to the scammer as part of the processing fee or to cover funeral or other expenses of the deceased. The scammers may produce false documents with official-looking seals. Once they receive the victim’s confidential bank account information, they drain the accounts and disappear.