Woman says stranger impersonated her, took her prescription at pharmacy

It’s something most of us have done at some point in time: went to the pharmacy and picked up a prescription. But a viewer reached out to us saying when she went to pick up her prescriptions at Rite Aid — they weren’t there.

She was told someone else had already picked them up. All they needed to know to get those prescriptions was the woman’s name and birth date. Now she’s reaching out to us for help.

There were really two things we wanted to hear Rite Aid respond to. First, whether it’s Rite Aid policy to just ask for a name and date of birth when giving out a prescription. Second, if that is the case whether they think that’s secure enough.

Tashawada Heard has MRSA and she relies on her prescriptions to get her through each day.

“If you can tell by these lesions on my arms and lesions on my face,” says Heard. “I definitely need the medicine because the pain is horrendous.”

But when she went to pick up her medications at the Portland Avenue Rite Aid Thursday, she says a worker at the pharmacy told her that her prescriptions had already been picked up.

“I said ‘there is no one authorized to pick up my prescriptions,'” Heard told News10NBC. “She said, ‘oh well, all they have to do is know your first and last name and date of birth.”

Heard was shocked. She says she has no idea who picked up that prescription. Since the prescription was already picked up she tells us her insurance company wouldn’t pay for Rite Aid to give out a second dosage. That’s when she called us.

“There could be thousands of people who have went to the pharmacy, filled up prescriptions, and someone else came and picked up their medicine and don’t even know that their identity is compromised now,” says Heard.

We went to bat for Heard by calling Rite Aid. They did get back to us a little later in the form of a statement. However, they didn’t answer the questions we posed earlier. The statement said, “We take these matters very seriously. As soon as we became aware, we immediately began investigating and we are in the process of reaching out to the customer.”

Filed under: General Problems