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SSN Overlap With Micronesia Causes Trouble For Woman
stevel writes "Holly Ramer, who lives in Concord, NH, has never been to the Federated States of Micronesia, but debt collectors dun her mercilessly for unpaid loans taken out by a small business owner in that Pacific island nation. Why? Micronesia and other countries in the region have their own Social Security Administrations which gave out numbers to residents applying for US disaster relief loans. The catch is that the Micronesian SSNs have fewer digits than the nine-digit US version, and when credit bureaus entered these into their database, they padded them out with zeros on the front. These numbers then matched innocent US citizens with SSNs beginning with zeroes, as many in northern New England do. The credit bureaus say to call the Social Security Administration, the SSA says call the credit bureaus, the FTC says they can't help, and nobody is taking responsibility for the confusion."
Fuck you! i do not owe you any money so you sort it out, it is not my problem
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Harass me because they want me to pay them money that I don't owe them? That can't be legal.
They'd never get a judge to sign a lien or wage garnishment unless the SSN, name, and birthdate matched. Not to mention signatures on signed documents.
Camping on quad since 1996.
The credit reporting agencies are redistributing negative information they _know_ is untrue. Why isn't this defamation or liable/slander (whichever is the written one)?
It seems like the credit agencies have managed to get some sort of immunity to "it costs money to lie" principle.
Where does this protection come from?
I agree that it has nothing to do with the social security system, since the extra-national numbers don't actually match (it's the credit reporting system that is forcing the reporting entity to "pad" the number with leading zeros) and are completely out of their control.
Like most of our problems in the U.S.A. there is a lack of accountability and personal and/or corporate responsibility at its core.
Eventually someone is going to revolt against someone somewhere.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
And that's why you have the ability to legally replace the government if you don't like them (ignoring, for a moment, the horrible disconnect it is to have a for-profit company that benefits directly from denying claims in charge of your health).
Besides which, this is a problem of the credit bureaus, not the government.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Did you read TFS? This is about a bunch of private sector bill collectors harassing private citizens for debts they don't owe; because they can't tell the difference between US and Micronesian SSNs.
Other than being a pretty fair parable of my interactions with my insurance company, this has nothing at all to do with what you are talking about.
Not sure what this has to do with health care. The issue is with the credit bureau systems being inept, not the SSA itself.
I'm gonna post a real reply to your comment and say you are right sir! I think it'll take years to work out who's fault this is, it's so convoluted.
In Micronesia, they gave out short SSNs. In Polynesia, they would have looked like x^2+4x-3.
All this, caused by someone too lazy to add a "if (country == USA)" statement.
The people who are being hounded ... should be sued.
Well, that's just mean.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
If only there was some mechanism whereby people could choose to select a new government after a fixed period of time.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
looks like the data (ssn) needs a little metadata (issuing authority, distinguished name) in order to make it work.
The national US Do Not Call registry has very severe penalties for those who make unsolicited business calls without a prior business relationship. $500/call IIRC
So just charge'em! Get details on the callers, and start the complain/enforcement process.
Of course, they will try to prove they have a prior business relationship. But will not be able to -- they're just fishing, trying to find the real people they foolishly loaned money to. So they'll pay for their unsolicited calls. Serve the basterds right!
A wonderful mechanism where 48% of a nation isn't stuck with whatever choice was made by the other 52% of the nation.
Oh well, I guess a guy can dream.
I have a phone number that is all zeros in one of its fields, and for a couple years I would get several calls a week from people who were apparently responding to a page. They would invariably start out yelling "What!" or "Yes!?" or some such, like I had been harassing them for a while. It eventually stopped occurring, presumably after a code review at the telco.
I got a new wireless phone a year ago. It came with daily calls from collection agencies for people I've never heard of. Some were annoying automated calls. When called by live people, I told them they had the wrong number and to please update their database. Of course they didn't. Finally took a letter to the agencies legal departments to get them to stop.
I was staying at a (rental) cabin in the woods this past weekend and got a call from a collection agency on the cabin's landline. And no, they were calling for a random person, not they owner of the cabin (or me).
As near as I can tell, collection agencies use the following strategy when seeking debtors: call every number in the country till they find the person they're looking for.
[Insert pithy quote here]
yeah that's what a load of people did over here with the fucking BMP and anything that gives racist nutters like them seats can't be good.
It's also very unlikely, sad as it is.
I was born in New York and have a 081- SSN. I think it's time to take out a bunch of Federal loans and blame some lazy Micronesian for failing to repay them. Then I can take the loan money and buy kilos of cocaine^Hdollar bills with the money, resell the dollars and really make some good cash.
1. Be born in the North Eastern United States
2. Take out loan
3. Exploit confused system that can't separate foreigners from natural citizens
4. ???
5. Profit!
If only there were some mechanism in place that would actually get us a new government rather than just a skewed rehash of the old one.
Oh wait, there is:
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
I think it's time to use that mechanism.
The real problem is that even if you get the debt collectors to stop dunning you, there will still be that negative entry on your credit report. You have to then manually fight each negative entry, which costs time and money.
A) Health care providers are large bureaucratic agency that you have less recourse against then government programs.
B) Many people can't change providers becasue they can't get ANY insurance
C) This issue isn't a government issue, it's a private company screwing up.
D) No one is saying getting rid of private health care
E) Most government program are far more efficient then private companies. I suggest you read the fiscal reports.
F) Change health care providers has a lot of problems. Pre existing conditions, risk of cancellation, increased costs when you change too much and are considered a risk.
G) the current cost actual inhibits small companies from hiring good people.
A government Health care program is far better then what we have now.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I don't know. The government has been running our K-12 public education system so effectively, if we trust the government with our childrens futures we can trust them with our health.
And that's why you have the ability to legally replace the government if you don't like them
No you don't. Where have you been? Don't you know that our esteemed legislators get to pick their voters, not the other way around?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
n/t
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I've been in Canada.
And frankly, if you see a problem like that in your government, there are two things you should be doing:
1. Lobbying to fix it
2. Getting the hell out of Dodge
Sitting back and taking it up the ass shouldn't really be an option, but it seems to be what most people choose.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
The SSA simply needs to announce that from next January, all new SSNs issued will be 22+ digits long and will be identical for the first or last 9 digits. They wouldn't have to do it, but it would force lots of places to plan for a future change. They could also start putting in a checksum on some new cards or throwing in letters. Remember the common mod 10 checksum used for things like credit cards was designed to work with EBCDIC letters.
Well, if it were possible to get legislation that puts credit bureaus acting within the U.S. under the domain of the FTC
Yeah, if only there was legislation in place that did that. Imagine how lucky we'd be if Congress had passed it way back in 1970......
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
is profit chasing the best way to run a health care system? probably not. you can't put a price on a person health. but if you want to start arguing that government departments are efficent with money, you'll lose lose lose.
at the end of the day, fixing health care is going to leave someone unhappy. if it's done right it's going to be drug companys and health insurance company's who will have their profits cut and prices regulated. health care can't exist as a for profit entity, because you've literally got a gun to their heads demanding money.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
This sounds a lot like the set-up for Terry Gillian's "Brazil".
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
They just use shotgun tactics to try and get a response, calling every number that they can find ever associated with a person. They aren't real good about taking hints either. At work (state university) we periodically get calls for someone that used to work there a LONG time ago. Now never mind they aren't supposed to be calling work, but he's not there. None the less they try to get information on him. Usually they'll go away when I say "I'm sorry, we can't give out any information." However there was one who was pretty stupid about it. More or less went like this:
Me: "He doesn't work here any more, hasn't for a long time, since before I was here."
They: "Well where is he now?"
Me: "I don't know, and even if I did I can't give you employee information, only HR can do that."
They: "Will they tell us where he is?"
Me: "Nope, they'll tell you his dates of employment."
They: "We need to know how to get a hold of him now, where we can reach him."
Me: "Well sorry, we can't help you."
They: "You have to tell us where he is, or get us someone who can."
Me: "I have to? Ok hang on a moment I'll need to conference in the general counsel, they'll need to be involved if you are making a legal claim."
At that point they immediately hung up. Guess they didn't want to talk to the lawyers. What amazed me was the tone and attitude of they had of "You have to help us do our job or else." Else what asshole?
Are you armed? Do you have military training? Are things bad enough you're willing to die to fix them? If the answer to any of the above is "no", then your opinion about whether or not we should have a revolution is irrelevant.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
No, you don't have the legal ability to replace the government. At best, you can vote for 1 representative, 1 senator, and 1 president (actually, elector). 3 people. Meanwhile, there are around 1.8 million (or more) government employees, and only 535 are directly elected, 2 indirectly elected.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
That's only a half truth; you logic is only sound if you assume that a government program has all the same expenses to pay as a corresponding private company. In many cases, this isn't the case as the government entity often doesn't need to market, pay competitive C-level salaries, etc. So, yes, for some definitions of "efficient" you are correct, but not on the definition that matters most in actual policy making.
Case in point: private insurance companies pay out 70% of the premiums you pay for actual healthcare. The rest goes to marketing, etc. By comparison, 96% of the money going into Medicare goes into actual healthcare costs. (This, according to Rand Corp.)
caritj.org
> In Micronesia, they gave out short SSNs. In Polynesia, they would have looked like x^2+4x-3.
What? [1, 4, -3] isn't very long...
The fact that it was ever permitted was immoral. It set up every holder of an SSN to be victim of this sort of abuse and as clearly demonstrated in this incident (and this is not isolated) NO ONE is ever held accountable for tragic mistakes and abuses. It's horribly imbalanced. The best defense anyone can take is to go "debt free/cash only" as much as possible. Debt financing is for crap anyway. Save money and buy in cash. Large cash purchases can give you tremendous leverage in negotiating sizable discounts anyway. You'll save money on interest and you'll save money though cash negotiation.
Not using debt doesn't help when the idiots are assigning someone else's debt to you...
I just realized that there is not much of a space for unique SSN's. 9 digits gives a maximum of 1 billion numbers. However, not every number is actually used. I assume that there must at least be a control number to check if SSN can be valid, similar to how credit cards / ISBN work. There could also be regional prefixes, similar to IP addresses (e.g. 111 = New York, 999 = California or something like that). etc. This would significantly reduce the number space.
Even if that's not the case, the population of US is ~ 300 million. There must have been more than 1 billion people who have lived/still living since the SSNs were first introduced.
My question is, how did US not run out of unique numbers? Do SSNs get reused?
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
When I was younger, I developed the habit of answering the phone, "Mort's morgue - you stab 'em, we slab 'em!" and other sophomoric phrases. After a while, I made a conscious effort to come up with new and interesting tag lines when answering the phone.
My friends and family expected wierd responses when they called. Debt collectors didn't. Sometimes they'd just hang up. Other times they'd apologize for the wrong number. But then some got downright nasty.
Having a relative run into debt problems, there was a period of time of about 6 months when I would receive calls from debt collectors on a regular basis. They always pretended to be someone else - usually someone with authority. In some cases, they impersonated the police, which was illegal.
But it just so happens that one time, I answered, "Dominoes Pizza..." And instead of a familiar family member's voice, it's the debt collector, impersonating a Chicago police officer. So I played along, taking his order (I had worked at pizza places before).
Now, this was after the invention of caller ID. And reverse-lookups on the Internet. And I happened to know that pizza stores routinely re-route orders to another store if the address doesn't fall within their delivery area. I'll leave as an exercise for the reader just what happened next.
Needless to say, they stopped calling.
I can't help but think that at least once, the sweatshop employees at a debt collection agency got a much needed pizza party, courtesy the employee who had the balls to impersonate a Chicago cop.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Only works if you always have the enough cash for all your purchases. While I would agree that it can help in many situations, the fact of the matter is, almost no one will have $250,000+ in cash to purchase a home, and only some will have the $15,000-50,000 to purchase a car. Other purchases may very well be fine, but for those few big ticket items, cash only would be very difficult for most of the population. Even getting the 10-20% needed for a down-payment on a house is difficult for the majority of people when houses cost in the $150,000+ range, and you can forget about it if you happen to be in New York City, San Francisco, or L.A., where even a tiny 1 room condo will be in the $350,000+ range, let alone a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath house...
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Wow that sucks. I wish the SSA here in the US would make a notice, something along the lines of "Numbers A through Z are affected." Just so we know if we are at risk for being harassed.
Debt collectors don't even care who they get the money from, as long as they get it. For example, when I was a kid my siblings and I had health insurance from my mother's job. She used to just bring my card to the doctor's office because, as far as she was concerned, our claims were all the same (different than hers).
When I turned 20 a collection agency called my house trying to tell me that I owed $500 to the Where I Live Medical Group. I asked her for details about the charges, and they all turned out to be hospital visits made in my name. They were all about 5 years old. I tried to explain to her that there must be a mistake, but what she said next was a real kicker: "Mr Lastname, aren't you going to take responsibility for your daughters medical bills?" I freaked out (I have no kids) and asked her what she was talking about. She said the name that was filed under patient care was "Mysister Lastname". She thought that my sister was my daughter, just because we had the same last name. She didn't even look at the DOB.
So my mom took my sister to the hospital five years ago with my insurance card, and didn't pay the bill. Then the hospital hunted me down and tried to tell me that my sister was my daughter and I was legally obligated to pay the bill. I asked her to look at the DOB for the patient and myself, and all of a sudden her demeanor changed (she must have realized she screwed up). The worst bit was that she started demanding to know how to get in contact with my parents, she was very aggressive. I called her a cunt and told her to fuck off. Most women who want money from me respond to that.
I just ignored the letters and phone calls until they went away, but the whole thing is fucked up if you think about it. I mean, shouldn't someone have noticed that the names on the forms don't match the name on the card, let alone the blood type and sex type? Birth date too now that I think about it.
I don't know about your state's laws, but in Texas, there isn't anything collectors can do to me. And they can't really win a court case without evidence of the debt being agreed upon in writing... well, maybe they can if you don't show up or otherwise answer any suits filed. Seriously. Aside from debts which federal law guarantees like student loans, there's not much "ID theft" can really do to hurt me as long as I am not buying anything on credit.
The "credit" required to buy a house or even a new car is a lot less than the credit needed to buy a new computer system or household appliances. Collateral worth repossessing means a lot more to creditors than your credit score. Credit score is is just a way to justify the excessive interest rates they want to apply. Buying real estate is easy. As for buying a new car? What are you thinking?! But I will say that saving up $20k or so becomes fairly easy once the saving habit is formed. Once you stop being tempted to buy crap you just don't need, you will find that you have lots more money than you've ever had in your pockets.
You are pretty well invested into the mythology of the credit game. It's time you spoke with your grandparents about how things used to be before this game was created and learn why they always had big savings accounts and other interest bearing accounts. It was no accident. It was the way things were done. Now days, people don't save at all. Having a couple thousand dollars in an account is pretty rare for most people. It's actually rather tragic. Nearly everyone lives in debt.
I want to be an american even LESS after this.
Yes, but they can get a judgement against you in another state - say, New Jersey - and use that to garnish your wages in Texas. I know of at least one case in which a default judgement in a California court was used to garnish wages in Illinois. The person in question had to fly to California to dispute the judgement and reopen the case.
I don't know how it all played out, but he was out a few thousand dollars in expenses before his name was cleared.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Did you read TFS? This is about a bunch of private sector bill collectors harassing private citizens for debts they don't owe; because they can't tell the difference between US and Micronesian SSNs.
... also because the respective governments can't buy a clue, and refuse to do anything about the root cause of the situation (clash of SSN).
No, but after you leading-zero fill that you won't mess up some poor woman's credit rating.
- just in case anybody else read the headline like I did.
Please submitters, avoid local acronyms, or at least expand them in the body. You can't seriously expect us to RTFA?
BTW, does this mean that US social security numbers lack check digits? That would be just silly.
Having a couple thousand dollars in an account is pretty rare for most people.
That's because they know that Our Beloved Leader Obama will take it!
This is somewhat off-topic, but I found the details of the article very interesting. Of 299 US government loans to Micronesians, over 200 were not paid up!! That makes subprime loans look like gold. Basically, the Micronesians are treating these as gifts, not loans. And why not - it's obvious the lender (that would be you, the American taxpayer) doesn't have any real recourse to collect. It's not like the Micronesians have anything to fear from US credit bureaus, who can't even track them adequately.
In other words, the US government tries to pretend these are loans by putting SSNs on the accounts, which ends up screwing over some hapless US citizen, when they should just treat them as gifts, because in reality it looks like they are.
Good luck finding a small claims court judge who:
Really, you need to sue in Federal District Court, if you want your case to be heard by a competent judge who understands the law. This is certainly possible for the pro se litigant, but it will take some studying up on procedure.
You'll need to ask yourself if the $1000 is worth it to you.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
ISO/IEC 7812 numbers starting with 9 are issued by national standards bodies, in which case the next three digits are the numeric-3 country code from ISO 3166-1 (840 for the US). That leaves two digits in the issuer identifier number to identify it as a SSN of the United States. The account number can be up to twelve digits, three more than our SSNs currently use, so current account numbers can be used, and we can switch to longer account numbers in the future.
In that place there is a even a problem with slavery. It's not a business environment where there is what we would recognise as any sort of sanity or respect for anybody. Colonial governments work very poorly when the country that owns the colony only want a place to refuel aircraft. If you think this is unbelievable go see what google turns up.
That is a flat out lie. Often large corporations are more inefficient then large government offices. Government organisations can and are run efficiently when the right people are running them, especially when an organisation runs on it's own income (IE, not from income tax). The amount of waste that comes out of government is nowhere near the amount of waste that comes out the private sector, the government has to be accountable to external auditors, a private corporation doesn't.
Another falicy. An agency must determine its budget for the next year. Medicare (Australia) has a fixed budget each year (AU$x per, Australian per year based on an cost of treatments estimate), if that budget is not spent it goes into a surplus for next year or towards reducing the cost to the taxpayer (mostly surplus).
This is something against your argument. A private corporation must always make a profit and must always be increasing its share price. A government only has to worry about exceeding their budget. In other words given the same leadership, a government organisation is cheaper then a private one as they dont have to pay dividends or increase share prices.
You also forget that there are two methods to increasing profit, which is a private corporations primary goal. One is to decrease operating costs and two is to increase prices. If a private entity decreases operating costs they do not need to pass this on to their customers. Further more the easiest way for a private corporation to decrease operating costs is to drop quality.
Dealing with Australia's worst government department is a hell of a lot easier and less stressful then trying to deal with Australia's best phone company and shock horror, all Australian phone companies are privatised.
Explain how? In Australia, Medicare (the socialised health care system if you haven't caught on by now) is for essential care in a public hospital. It does not cover elective surgery or extra's. Australia has a healthy private health system with private hospitals and private insurers. The private insurers make money by offering services that the public system does not like private hospital rooms, elective surgery, greater coverage of non-critical procedures. Best of all, private health cant compete with public health on price, so they have to compete on service which means better healthcare for my AU Dollar. I pay A$500 per year for health care, this is a separate line item on my tax return each year, what does A$500 get in the states.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
They don't deserve an ounce of sympathy and if they make the mistake of calling me they are going to hear every four letter word in the English language.
--
I want peace on Earth and goodwill toward men.
Some posts and sig's just don't mix.
these days we all got are share of those phone calls. i dont even know why these company's are even payed i mean if you cant pay you cant pay what are they going to do sue you. i think most of there cases just end in bankrupsy. rember you can keep everything in one as long as you keep payments you slect what debts you whant whiped out. but thers alot of dumb people out there i guess.
Unless the wage was being paid out from California (where the judgement was incurred), this can't work.
Assume this: i work in CT, and my employer pays my salary from MA. A debt collector gets a judgment for wage garnishment in a MA court. That's fine. Because the employer MUST obey his state's rules.
But if the same collector gets a judgement in CA, neither the employer nor me has to worry. In fact i would sue the employer if he garnished my wages without a MA court order (unless it was a Federal court).
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
And this is better than zero elected in your local insurance company?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
And when you find you can't get a loan / get a mortgage / have other credit problems because of this mistaken identity getting entered into a central credit agency that your bank refers to?
It happened to me: Experian got information wrong about me and they refused to change my records until I took a train to London to speak to the council officers who kindly agreed to speak to Experian on the phone, and explained that they held incorrect records about me. Local government officials, thank you. Experian - dodgy commercial operation that doesn't care about people.
It's impossible to know in advance whether it is or it isn't. But if you assume not and it turns out that the person does intend to harm you it's too late.
If he doesn't leave immediately after one warning it's entirely the trespasser's fault. I'm not going to waste tears on a dead gangster.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Ever wondered whose taxes funded the loans to you guys and your bailouts? Really believe those loans are going to get paid back in full? Didn't think so...
Shit happens, but it's how we like it!
FBI statistics. Look it up."
Way to support your argument. Tell others to look it up for you.
It's not FBI statistics. It's a biased and thoroughly debunked study. Google "Kellerman Study Gun Control".
The study said that a gun in the home was much more likely to be used against you or your loved ones than to kill an attacker. The catch was in the careful wording. Successful defense was counted only as killing an attacker - not warding him off. And use against a loved one included domestic violence (killing an abusive spouse). The sample data was from one select county in Washington over a mere 5 years.
Given a little thought, the statistic doesn't make much sense. How is an intruder who doesn't know I have a gun or where it is far more likely to wind up with that gun than me? And if I have it out and pointed at him, what are the odds he can take it without being shot?
Unless you believe that criminals have superhuman strength and prowess while the rest of society is meek and mild, it's hard to see how that statistic is believable.
And getting job, renting a house, and the numerous other things that do stupid credit checks.
I'm not saying you are liable for such debts, but you have to go through exactly the same hassle as those who do use credit in order to get them off your credit history.
If you have enough sense to browse the comments, you'll find common themes:
1. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is pretty effective at helping you deal with collectors, so go read the law.
2. You can usually get a good response by writing a letter (and you'll see why if you read the law). At the minimum you can make them comply with a "do not call me" request and make them correspond by letter.
I will add a bit of my own wisdom. Find out the laws in your state and record your telephone. I happen to be in a "one party knows" state, so I can record my calls without saying. I always ask the state the collector is in and look it up to see if it is compatible (otherwise you may need to inform them if you want to use the recordings in court).
Review your telephone recordings. Sometimes collectors will say things that don't mean quite what you think when you are on the line and under stress. I found reviewing the recordings left me with "ah ha" moments, especially when I took the conversation in the context of the FDCPA.
Despite some other commentor's opinions it was my experience that debt collectors are often professional thugs. It makes sense, thugs have to work somewhere too, and you do what you are good at.
If you have to pay a collector (I owed for a legitimate claim one time when there was a billing mistake), I recommend a one-time use credit card number. It can't be double billed if you set a limit at the correct amount. Believe me, you don't want to try to collect from a collector who owes you money because they screwed up. You can be successful, but you won't enjoy it.
Remember, you want to be polite but firm. You want your recorded voice (remember, you're going to be taping this) to sound reasonable. If you take this collector to court, you want them to be the asshole. You want the judge to get pissed on your behalf and zing them with a judgment.
"hey, credit bureaus, guess what? You know how you were too fucking lazy to change your forms/software to account for these other countries and SSNs? Well, now you get to eat those debts, in your profits. And we'll let the IRS know, too, so you can't try some rotten underhanded tax tricks. And if we catch you wrongly harassing innocent civilians again, we'll rip out your balls and ship them to Jupiter. Clear?"
It frustrates me - the government is supposed to be here to serve the interests of private citizens and protect us from big corporations trying to rip us off (among other things), but somewhere along the line, they teamed up with big business and pinned down the American consumer while big business just kept swinging.
I am reading this as insightful rather than sarcastic due to two party systems.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
If the numbers, complete with the leading zeros, weren't issued by the Social Security Administration, then they aren't SSNs. Period. If I suffer damages because some assclown(s) at a credit agency used these numbers ads if they were SSNs, I'd venture to guess that I have the basis for one serious law suit. Using completely bogus numbers issued by fuck-only-knows-who to screw with my credit rating sounds like gross negligence and punitive damages to me.
Fuck you nigsausage!
The root cause isn't a clash of Soc Sec Numbers. The root cause is that the credit industry has taken it upon themselves, at least in the US, of using the SSN as your ident for credit purposes, something the number was never intended for. Couple that with bottom feeders that don't "own" the debts trying to "collect" on them, only believing the credit reporting agency info (which is often in error, more often than not...).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Boston Globe did a series on the debt collection racket. It's disturbingly common for the collection agencies to use incorrect contact details when trying to resolve debts peacefully or when notifying the courts of a debt. Then they get to go to court, gain a default judgement since the debtor never got notified about the court date, and then tack on a ton of 'fees' before showing up at the correct address with a tow truck.
http://www.boston.com/news/specials/debt/
Oh my goodness..
Fuck you nigsausage.
This is clearly 100%, indisputably the fault of the credit bureaus. Why the FUCK would you enter a number that ISN'T an SSN in a form that could match a valid SSN? It's as if they said, "Our database can only handle 15 character last names, so anybody named Souphanousinphone should just be entered as Johnson."
In Texas there are only three causes for wage garnishment and they all stem from US Federal law. 1. Would be federal taxes. 2. Child support and 3. Student loans. Beyond that, you're pretty immune in Texas.
The incident you describe is certainly tragic and cause for a consumer group to start lobbying to have laws changed in all of those other states as it is quite evident that the present laws are used to harm innocent people.
They'ld probably think to each-other, I'll dress as a Apple OSX programmer and sit on that bench right there 30 minutes before where agreed to meet. Then they'll start talking about their jobs at Apple, and not know what the fuck they're talking about they'll just keep talking to eachother and become friends. They'll offer eachother to go home and have 2x2 orgy, play some iTunes on the Shag carpet, and take some LSD. They'll part as friends, because you chose to stage this in a Gay neighborhood.
Should've picked a Storage Locker company of some kind.
Um, don't you want to send them to the FTC? The FCC gives out fines for saying naughty words on the TV and radio, they don't deal with spammers & scammers...
I dunno. I think I'd prefer them to be dealing with my junk mail than censoring the shows I choose to watch...
Oh, this should be fun.
Let's wait and see if they accept a computer/operator glitch and fix it and pay to help out those who were harmed.
Oh, sorry.. This is reality. My bad. Nothing happened; this is all a nothing but a fallacy by whoever/whomever came up with it.
SORRY, GOVERNMENTAL PRESS DISCUSSION IS OVER! Enjoy some NyQuil on your way out of the building! Good day! *run*
*snort* lol
Experian claimed I wasn't on the Electoral Roll for the time when I was living in Hackney. I am a bit absent minded but I was sure I was. The Experian people didn't believe me and told me their records were correct and I was wrong. I took a train to London, to Hackney Town Hall, and the kind council officer brought my records up and showed me that they did indeed have the record that I had posted back my voting documents for the addresses I had lived at.
I phoned Experian while standing there and they re-iterated that I was not on the Electoral Roll and did not believe me. I said "one moment please, I am passing you over to the Electoral Officer for Hackney" and the nice officer kindly spoke to Experian and said words to the effect of "yes he is standing here with me and yes I am the Electoral Roll Officer and yes he is in the records" - at which point the Experian person agreed to change my records.
Thank you nice person from Hackney Council.
For those non-UK people, the Electoral Roll, whether you are signed up to vote for elections in your local area (including national elections) is quite a big deal for credit records when applying for home mortgages. So having a credit company (that your bank uses to check your credit status) not keep those records straight is a real problem for first time house buyers like me.
Experian also mixed up my records with my brother, and I had loads of his personal credit history on my record at one point, and I had to sort that out. Luckily me and my brother get on really well but I had access to all the details of my brother's personal credit loans for a while. I had to spend my time and money to sort that out.
Be careful of Experian.
I guess it is something we have to put up with - big companies getting our details wrong and us suffering as a result. I certainly don't have the time and money to do anything more than correct their errors on my record and rant on slashdot. Would have been nice if they'd refunded my train fare to London though!