A Texas company called Datamasters was selling a list of 435,245 people with Alzheimer’s disease. Names. Home addresses. Phone numbers. Email addresses. All packaged up and available to anyone with a credit card.
Alzheimer’s patients. The people most vulnerable to financial exploitation and online scams on the planet. For sale. That’s atrocious.
But that wasn’t all. Datamasters also sold records on 2,317,141 blind or visually impaired people, 133,142 addiction sufferers, 857,449 people with bladder control issues and “Hispanic lists” with over 20 million names. They sold lists of seniors and people with high-interest mortgages (aka people likely struggling financially), as well as 3,370 “Consumer Predictor Models” that could tell buyers your probable political affiliation, spending habits and nonprofit donations.
Their national database record for sale covers 114 million households and 231 million individuals. That’s almost every adult in America.
🎯 This should make you furious
Alzheimer’s patients are especially vulnerable to financial scams. Criminals know it. Investigators have found scammers buying lists from data brokers specifically to target people who can’t fight back.
These aren’t mailing lists for coupons. They’re target lists for predators.
Here’s the part that gets me. You probably assume HIPAA protects your health information. It doesn’t. Not here. HIPAA only applies to health care providers and insurers. Data brokers sit completely outside those rules. There is no federal law stopping a company from collecting the fact that your mom has Alzheimer’s and selling it to a stranger.
The fine California hit them with? $45,000. Datamasters’ database covers 231 million people. Do the math. That’s a fraction of a penny per person.
🔒 Lock it down
Most Americans don’t have California’s protections. If anyone in your family has a health condition, a disability or a financial vulnerability, their information may already be sitting in a database like this one. Waiting to be sold.
The company got a $45,000 fine. Your family’s safety is worth more than that.
That’s where a service like Incogni comes in.
😰 Scammers don’t guess anymore
They buy your name, home address, phone number, even your parents’ and kids’ names from data brokers for pennies. Then they call pretending you owe money, your account’s been compromised or you missed jury duty. They sound convincing because they know everything about you.
I use Incogni because it fights back for you:
- Automatically sends legal removal requests to over 420 data brokers and people-search sites, including the ones selling health and vulnerability data.
- Keeps scrubbing in the background because brokers re-add your info. Incogni keeps removing it.
- The Unlimited Plan goes further. If your info pops up anywhere else online, send the link to their privacy experts, and they handle it for you.
Less data out there means fewer scam calls, less junk mail and a much smaller target on your back.
✅ Use code KIM60 for 60% off, and start removing your data today. They can’t scam you if they can’t find you.
📩 Know someone caring for a parent? Forward this right now. Their mom or dad could be on one of these lists. That’s not a hypothetical.