WASHINGTON – For many Americans, the government’s new Medicare drug discount card will be a way to save money. For a few, it is a way to make money – by scamming seniors.

The much-anticipated Medicare program to offer cards with discounts on prescription drugs won’t begin until May, but 11 states already have seen cases in which con artists are targeting Medicare beneficiaries in fraudulent come-ons, officials said Thursday.

“It’s so appalling these individuals are willing to create schemes that take advantage … of a law intended to do so much good,” said Leslie Norwalk, deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Scams so far have involved phone calls or door-to-door solicitations to ostensibly register people for the new program. Those behind the scams offer to enroll seniors in exchange for their bank information, Social Security number, or credit card number.

In other instances, the caller already has some of the individual’s private health history and tries to collect their banking or Medicare information, which could then be used to file false claims.

People have complained about such scams in Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Maryland, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington, officials said. Officials in Arkansas have also warned seniors to be on guard against such pitches.

There is no reason to think the scams are connected, but the con artists take a common approach in trying to fool the victims, officials said.

“They will do all sorts of things to try to make the beneficiaries trust them,” said Norwalk. “They’re eliciting enough information to be able to extract money from the [victim’s] account.”

Seniors should be on guard against phone or personal solicitations, officials warned. They stressed that Medicare contacts its beneficiaries only by mail.

The real cards will cost no more than $30 a year and offer discounts ranging from 10 percent to 25 percent on prescription drugs. The cards will eventually be phased out when a broad prescription drug benefit is made available in 2006.

Medicare plans to announce the companies selected to offer the cards in a matter of weeks, and then launch an advertising campaign in May to alert seniors to the benefit.

Norwalk, the administrator, emphasized that Medicare will never phone or knock on a beneficiary’s door to enroll them in a program, and will only send mailings about the drug card.

She also cautioned seniors not to give out personal or financial information to people they don’t know.