06/26/2026
You search "Medicare" on Google. The first result looks exactly right. Same colors, same official-sounding name. You click, type in your Medicare number to "verify," and book a free consultation.
You never reached Medicare.
That top result was a paid ad. The real government site sits below it, in the regular results. The FTC just settled with a company that paid millions to put fake "official enrollment" ads at the top of search.
The fix is simple: the real ones end in .gov. Type medicare.gov straight into your browser, or bookmark it once and never search again.
When you search for any government program, scroll past the ads. The first result isn't always the real one.
