Florida patients get spam and fraud calls on hospital room phones

Chest pains sent 84-year-old Nikki Leman to the hospital in April. Daughter Leanne Depa said the phone in her mom’s hospital room at St. Joseph’s South in Riverview started ringing the next day. Depa answered it, thinking it was someone from inside the hospital. But she told ABC Action News the call came from a robo dialer talking "about Florida having some death benefit, or something like that.” Depa hung up. But 20 minutes later, the phone rang again. This time the caller was pitching health insurance. She said the robo-dialing went into the next day.

[@plazas1242]

How the scammers knows people are in the hospital. That’s crazy unless your phone is connected with the hospital phone.

[@thefamily512]

So you answer the phone and tell them your name is John Wick.

[@radiogods5342]

I complained about this a year ago

[@bigedslobotomy]

Sure, hospitals should shield their patients from such calls as much as possible, but why not go to the SOURCE of the problem? Why do cell phone and telephone companies allow such activity in the first place?