Why you may get an unsolicited CDC phone call

After receiving two calls from a number claiming to be CDC, Linda asked if she had been scammed. This is how we VERIFY that calls are legitimate.

When it comes to unsolicited phone calls, it can be difficult to know if you’re dealing with a scammer.

That’s why Linda contacted VERIFY. She asked whether a surprise call claiming to be from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was a scam.

QUESTION

Does the CDC make unsolicited phone calls?

ANSWER

This is true.
Yes, CDC makes unsolicited phone calls as part of the National Immunization Survey.

WHAT WE FOUND
The phone calls Linda received came from the CDC as part of the National Immunization Survey.

Linda shared that the calls were coming from the phone number 404-806-4812. On its website, CDC lists that phone number and three others as phone numbers associated with various National Immunization Surveys.

Here are three other phone numbers on the CDC website:

404-809-2195
404-806-4810
404-806-4811

CDC explains that survey responses help guide state and national health policies by providing information on childhood vaccinations, COVID-19 vaccine coverage, and other topics other. More information about the surveys is available on the CDC website.

A letter from José Romero, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said phone numbers for the surveys are randomly selected by computer. The National Opinion and Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, which has been conducting surveys since 2005, then contacts random participants.

NORC said the results of the child and adolescent surveys are released each spring, while the COVID-19 and flu surveys are “ongoing and reported weekly to estimate calculated in real time”.

Romero said in the letter that participating in the survey is voluntary and that you can also decide not to answer one or more questions.

If you have questions about any of the surveys, you can call NORC at 1-877-220-4805.

Although the CDC is making unsolicited calls as part of a legitimate vaccination survey, you should generally be wary of them.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warns that “if someone calls you out of the blue and asks you for personal information or to wire money or pay with gift cards, it is a scam.”

If you have questions about a call, the FTC advises you to simply hang up. You can also report the call at DoNotCall.gov.