As Medicare’s Dec. 7 enrollment deadline approaches, older adults and caregivers should be on the lookout for scammers.

Hoping to con people into disclosing Social Security numbers or other sensitive information, fraudsters pose as Medicare officials or insurance company employees in phone calls and text messages.

This trickery adds to the already stressful experience of deciding on insurance coverage, but there are ways older adults and caregivers can avoid being duped and potentially losing money or their identities.

Ryan Ramsey with the National Council on Aging, a nonprofit that advocates for the well-being of older adults, said that it’s first good to know that toward the end of November, criminals are particularly active as they seek to leverage the approaching deadline to pressure people into making mistakes.