Who's defrauding the University of California, now?

SEK's insurance provider outsourced its "dependent eligibility verification process" to a company called Secova whose homepage redirects to a shifty search engine that's already looking for "xanax bars." Or it redirects to an ebay store selling Unique Jewelry from Paula. [DO NOT CLICK ON THOSE LINKS UNLESS YOU LIKE TROJANS AND YOU DON'T LIKE TROJANS.] The point being that it redirects ... and that his insurance company required him to send this company his last two years of tax returns to prove that he's married to his wife. Had SEK known about the fraudulent web-redirects before speaking to this representative this conversation would've gone much differently. Not that he finds any of this surprising mind you. Now that they're not returning his calls, SEK will provide them with some free publicity.

SEK: What's with you not wanting to acknowledge that I'm married to my wife?

SECOVA REPRESENTATIVE: Did you know your wife has a different last name than you?

SEK: Yes. She kept her maiden name.

SECOVA REPRESENTATIVE: That's odd. Hold on (audibly typing) "kept ... maiden ... name." What's wrong with yours ha ha ha?

SEK: (resisting the urge to say "Mine's too Jewish") Nothing.

SECOVA REPRESENTATIVE: I see. And who told her to keep it ha ha ha?

SEK: ?

SECOVA REPRESENTATIVE: It just seems strange. Woman marries a man, keeps her own name. Like it's not a real marriage ha ha ha.

SEK: (resisting the urge to say "After 13 years, someone's finally busted us, congratulations, sir!") ??

SECOVA REPRESENTATIVE: We're going to have to investigate this. I'm not saying it looks suspicious, but if we can't verify you're married, she'll lose her coverage on September 11th.

SEK: (resisting the urge to say, well, something about 9/11 and Obama and the ACA) ???

SECOVA REPRESENTATIVE: We'll be in touch once we've sorted your relationship out. You could've made this easy if you just made her change her name, you know ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.

Comments

[PQuincy]

(Saw the link over at LGM blog...then came here).

This is very weird. If I just type "www.secova.com" into my broswer's URL line, I get the company's website.

If I google them, then click the link, clearly labeled "www.secova.com", I also get dodgy search engines.

Is this a Google URL/IP tracking problem? Is Secova's IP number somehow lost when accessed one way (via Google find link) but not if using DNS directly (which would be doubleextrastrange, since I happen to be using Google for my DNS, semi-inadvertently.

Mysteries of the Web.

The conversation, meanwhile, is deeply disturbing, and I hope your campus HR is all over it.

[SEK]

Campus HR is all over it, and fortunately I have a window of opportunity before my wife's denied service.

And I don't understand the redirect either. People think I understand the Internet because I write all over it, but my technical know-how was obsolete in 1998. I'm surprised when this page loads and the sidebars aren't horizontal.

[Ahistoricality]

It means that Secova's site has been hacked and their tech people haven't figured out how to clean it out yet.

[Paul Renault]

Alternately, SEK could've replied that maybe, just maybe, they were married in Quebec, where, by law, the spouses keep their names (resisting the urge to say "You uneducated, mouth-breathing twat!").

/Jeepers, and some 'Mercans still can't understand why Canadians fiercely defend Universal Medicare.

[jeff kaufman]

If you like SECOVA wait until the ACA goes into effect and you have to deal with untouchable government bureaucrats (e.g. IRS, TSA, SSA) and see how much fun you have. Then there is the payment advisory board which will be coming up with ways of making medicare expenditures match target spending levels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Payment_Advisory_Board)