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SSN Overlap With Micronesia Causes Trouble For Woman

Posted by samzenpus on from the not-my-problem dept.

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."

2 of 494 comments (clear)

  1. Re:what i would say by CodeBuster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The linked article said that there are potentially 130,000+ potential matches when the Micronesian SSNs are padded out with zeros to form 9-digit US SSNs. It probably won't be too long before some enterprising lawyer realizes that these 130,000 people form a class and files class action lawsuits against credit bureaus, reporting agencies, and any other firms which (a) have a few bucks and (b) attempt to collect from the wrong people.

  2. Re:what i would say by Skater · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Thanks for this info! I have a similar problem - the people who lived at my house before me apparently took off in the middle of the night and left all kinds of debt strewn around. I bought the house (they were renters), and the collection agencies started calling ME. As far as I can tell, the collection agencies find the old number is disconnected, then do a lookup to see what phone number is available at the house, and call it. Idiots - you'd think they could also look at the names and go, "Hey, these are different people!!" I've lived here over three years now (and the renters moved out many months before I bought the house - they may have even been gone for more than a year), and I still get calls for them perhaps once every 6 weeks or so (fortunately waaaay down from the 2-3 every week I got when I first moved in, but still annoying).

    One time a lawyer left a long message on the machine for them trying to get them to call her before court the following day (where I assume she got a default judgement, since I doubt they knew or cared about it). I was sorely tempted to either call her and either (a) imitate them and call her nasty names, or (b) ask to join her lawsuit for the time I've spent dealing with their many collection calls.

    The automated ones are the worst. If you ignore them they just keep calling. So I have to spend time calling them and carefully explaining how someone can actually move to a new residence. It can take a while for them to understand that concept.