Scams, high demand shut down Allegheny County phone lines for vaccine appointments

A phone line meant to help seniors and those without internet access set up covid-19 vaccination appointments lasted less than four hours Thursday before appointments were full — but it was long enough for scammers to begin intercepting calls and asking for money, according to Allegheny County officials.

Beginning at noon, a partnership between the United Way and the Allegheny County Health Department meant that Allegheny County residents eligible for the vaccine could call 2-1-1 to schedule an appointment at the county’s point of dispensing in Monroeville rather than rely on the internet.

By 12:30 p.m., however, the phone lines were overrun, leaving many callers unable to get through. As of 3:45, the line was unable to take any more calls. Officials said that based on the number of appointments already made and the number of callers in the queue, it concluded no more appointments were available.

Dr. Debra Bogen, director of the county’s health department, had warned earlier that appointment slots were limited — about 750 over the next two weeks — and she expected them to fill quickly.

Amie Downs, a spokeswoman for the county, said officials also received reports of callers being intercepted by scammers asking for credit card information or gift cards in order to make an appointment.

She said phone carriers are investigating as to how those calls were intercepted.

A 2-1-1 Resource Navigator will never ask for personal information — like a credit card number — or ask a person to purchase or send a gift card.

Anyone whose call was diverted or may have provided personal information like this should contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or tips@fbi.gov.

Making use of the United Way’s 2-1-1 line for appointment scheduling was meant to ease the process for older residents, Bogen said, noting that “the online registration can be a challenge for some of our county’s seniors.”

Links to register at the Monroeville point of dispensing will continue to be posted on the health department’s covid-19 vaccine information page at alleghenycounty.us/COVIDvaccine when any vacancies occur. The department will continue to push out information through Allegheny Alerts, which people can sign up to receive at alleghenycounty.us/alerts.

During Thursday’s phone registration, 750 residents registered for appointments available at the Point of Dispensing site inside the DoubleTree Hotel in Monroeville.

Calls began pouring into the call center before the 12 p.m. start time. On a typical day during the pandemic, the center received 750 contacts a day on average. In the first five minutes following today’s announcement, 653 people called into 2-1-1.

Shortly after the phone lines went live at noon, 2-1-1 began working with its telephone partners to expand capacity to meet the high demand. It expanded fivefold by mid-afternoon.

This phone registration is intended for those 65 and older who do not have internet access or who had trouble with the registration website. But 2-1-1 on Thursday received calls from people who did not meet that criteria, which further added to the call volume.

The average call time Thursday was 15 to 20 minutes, with the wait time for those in the queue spanning from 20 minutes to an hour.

Since the vaccine became available to those 65 and older in Pennsylvania, many have expressed frustration with the technology-driven process to sign up for the few appointment slots that usually fill up quickly.

For older residents with little technology experience, taking on such a task is next to impossible to imagine. Bill Johnson-Walsh, Pennsylvania’s state director for AARP, said there are many residents who don’t have any kind of device access. If they do, it’s usually just to communicate with their grandchildren or play games.

“It is statewide,” Johnson-­Walsh told the Tribune-Review last week. “The frustration, the confusion that’s going on. We’ve been seeing several hundred calls in the last couple of weeks, just asking for help.”

In a letter to Gov. Tom Wolf, Johnson-Walsh and AARP recommended a centralized 800 number for people to call to have their questions answered, a system in which a real person can walk them through the process. Johnson-­Walsh understands the state’s decentralized approach to vaccine distribution — leaving independent hospitals and other providers to administer doses on their own — but for many of the state’s most at-risk residents, the lack of accessible information puts lifesaving vaccine out of reach.

“In order for us to make sure that that death rate goes down, we need to be able to vaccinate those that are most at risk,” he said.