Memorial Health System is the latest victim of “spoof” phone scams.
“Spoofing” is when a caller is able to hide their identity by placing call that appear as another person’s or businesses phone number.
Memorial announced on Thursday they have been made aware of an attempted scam involving phone calls that appear on caller ID to originate from the Health System’s main hospital phone number.
MHS says unknown persons are making calls to local residents trying to sell a product, or falsely claiming the recipient must pay a bill. The calls appear on caller ID as the main MHS phone number of 217-788-3000.
MHS says legitimate calls are still coming from the 788-3000 number, such as to schedule or confirm patient appointments. Memorial Health System Administrators ask that any patient who receives a call from MHS and have concerns about it’s authenticity, should hang up the phone and call back .
According to the announcement, MHS says incoming calls to the health system have not been impacted at this time.