Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
If they keep calling you and asking you to pay them, it automatically becomes your problem, even if it isn't supposed to be.
I wonder if one could report them for extortion. Especially if they keep it up after you have provided reasonable evidence that you don't owe them money.
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]
from personal experience, i can tell you that this does not work. the C&D order will simply be returned to sender because the collection agencies know not to sign for certified mail.
Let them refuse the C&D letter. I'll include that fact in my lawsuit. Judges don't look favorably upon those that attempt to duck legal papers/service. They are just putting another nail in their coffin if they do this.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
If you don't admit to being the debtor they're calling about, they will not give you the opportunity to sue them.
That's why I don't confirm or deny that I'm the debtor. It should go like this:
"Hello, may I speak to Joe Deadbeat?"
"Who is this?"
"May I speak to Joe Deadbeat?"
"Who is this?"
Do this long enough and eventually you'll get some moron that assumes you are the debtor. They will then start trying to collect from you. At this point it isn't real hard to get an address out of them.
For extra points record the phone call (if legal to do so in your state) and hope they are stupid enough to disclose some detail about Joe Deadbeats account. Then track down Joe Deadbeat yourself and offer him the tape so he can sue them for this disclosure. Assuming that you never claimed to be Joe Deadbeat you've broken no laws by letting them hang themselves.
I actually did this once after a collection agency refused to take the hint that my recently assigned phone number didn't belong to the man they were looking for. I started recording their calls and eventually some jackass told me the amount that was owed on the account. I located Joe Deadbeat myself and gave him the recording. He sued them and won a sizable settlement and an agreement that they'd write off the debt.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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?
Then you keep them on the line as long as possible, tell them "please hold", set them on hold, and forget about them for a few hours, so they will waste as many international calling minutes as possible.
Oh, yes, and add their phone number to your call blocking list, so they can't call you anymore.
Or just say "I'm not paying" and hang up abruptly, as soon as they call you.
If they call back, "Calls from your organization are harassment, don't call me again" [CLICK]
It's annoying, but they should stop eventually.
>>>This is a civilized country with civilized rules
Really?
Then how come on of my local citizens, who spied a thief trying to steal his car, and hit said thief over the head with a bat to stop him, was arrested by the policy *on his own property*? Why is the thief now suing the homeowner for medical damages?
This is not a civilized society when thieves are protected while homeowners trying to protect their homes/cars/yards are jailed and later sued. A civilized society doesn't take the view that homeowners should just quietly hide, while the thief drives-off with the car or other personal possessions. That's an anarchist society.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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.
Just let them know that
"This phone call is being recorded for legal liability purposes."
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Protecting property shouldn't be necessary at all. Once someone is trying to steal my belongings, they have waived any rights to safety they might have had. To give the criminal rights while they are committing a crime is to remove all rights from the victim. That is not just.
But I have known for many years that there is no justice in the United States.
I wish that would work for me. I have one of the more common last names in the U.S.. I live in an apartment complex with over 1,000 apartments. There is a couple with the same last name in the complex who have had their telephone disconnected. There are some creditors who call for them. The problem is that every three months or so, the debt gets passed down the line to the next debt collector. When the calls start, I tell them that I don't know either of these people. They are very polite and tell me that they will take my number off their records. The calls stop and in 2 to 3 months start again from a different collection agency.
I know how this happens. There is a company that sells information to track people down. This company lists my wife and I as possible relatives of this couple. What is really funny about this company is that even though I am part of a large family, the only people they list as my possible relatives is this guy and my father. My father has been dead for 10 years. They don't even list my wife as one of my relatives, although they list her as related to this guy.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
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.
Lots of things.
Unless you've got a lot of money, you need various forms of credit in case of an emergency. What if you suddenly need to pay a $50,000 medical bill because you suffered an injury the insurance won't cover? Or a legal bill? For even the upper middle class with a few hundred K in assets, it's not convenient to come up with that kind of money on the spot. You usually have to sell some stocks or other securities, or get a second mortgage, etc. A few high limit credit cards in your wallet can make the problem a lot more managable.
Insurance of all types looks at credit ratings. Cell phone companies.
A key one is EMPLOYERS. Yep, your credit score can determine whether they even offer you a job. Unfair, but some do it.
Banks also care.
Bottom line : your credit score matters a ton, and you should do what you can to protect and optimize it. The formula is complex, but you should have exactly 4 high limit credit cards with very little utilization. You should keep those 4 cards for as long as possible, never canceling them. Maybe have them set to be paid in full automatically at the end of each month, and occasionally purchase something using the cards. You should get a form of long term consumer debt (like a mortgage) and pay that as well. Usually, even if you can afford to buy a house cash, a mortgage can give you tax benefits that are worth it, and you can secure the mortgage with some securities to lower the interest rate.
All this, caused by someone too lazy to add a "if (country == USA)" statement.
All this thread and your comment about country==USA reminds me a problem my wife and I are facing now with SEVIS, DMV, and Immigration Services. When we tried to get our Driver License, we had problem because our prove of legal residence didn't match with the records of Immigration Services. Specifically, we appear as Ivory Cost citizens but we are Chileans. Trying to find out what the problem is, I discovered that my DS-2019 in the country code field has CI, the Ivory Coast code. But that was not the problem!!! SEVIS (a DB of students in US and part of the Homeland Security) use other kind of Coding for the countries. This coding is called "The Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 10-4", and it is different of the code used by Immigration services (another office in the same Homeland Security), the former use ISO-3166-1. In the FIPS code Chile is CI which is the Ivory coast in the ISO-3166-1 standard. This situation has generated a lot of problems, traveling to Immigration offices, then back to DMV, then office of Customs and Border Protection in the airport, etc. We still cannot get our driver license for this and other problems. But what is still surprising me is the way that public workers and bureaucrats try to avoid problems instead of resolve it. That way they have been seeing me again and again, week after week, with little sense of empathy for our situation and less sense of optimality for their own job. so... if (CodeStd==FIPS && CountryCode==CI) then Country=CHILE
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.