Posted on 02/06/2006 1:36:03 PM PST by Jhohanna
For years, Margaret Harrison believed she had an impostor. There were signs her Social Security number was living a double life. Four years ago, an unemployment office in West Virginia almost denied her claim, saying she already had a job at a horse farm in Chelan, Wash. Three years ago, a teller at Bank of America looked up her account number by her Social Security number and then asked, “Is your name Pablo?”
(Excerpt) Read more at redtape.msnbc.com ...
The penalties for this kind of behavior need to be very severe. Any evidence that someone is using another persons SSN needs to be throughly investigated. Not only is this eroding confidence in our financial and banking systems, evidence of SSN fraud is indicative of other crimes being committed as well. This is like forging your signature. There should be no tolerance of this.
Like the woman in the article, you might suspect but you have no way to verify or fix. We need less government - no SS numbers ! (no SS/Medicare woud be fine too)
BUMP!
ping
Sounds to me that you are anti illegal immigrant because they're who most of the perpetrators are. They are behind most identity theft. Legal immigrants do it too. My guess is native born Americans do 5% of identity theft nation wide.
It's criminal that the Feds and states don't have more severe penalties but that would upset the whole illegal alien racket
If the thief is working at a job which reports income to the IRS (and most any job that required a SS# would), the IRS will do the match-up for you. My Dad found this out the hard way. He's a retired Foreign Service Officer in his 80s, living in the Washington DC area, and a couple of years ago the IRS demanded that he pay a bunch more in taxes "on income you failed to report on your tax return". Turned out this income was that of an illegal immigrant busboy who'd been working at a Brooklyn, NY restaurant for a few months, using my Dad's SS#. It took months to sort out; my Dad has a lot of time on his hands and the skills to deal with government bureaucracy, but if this happened to someone who was juggling a job and family, or to the mentally incapacitated parent of same, sorting it out could be a very costly nightmare.
You are correct, but there is still no federal law prohibiting SSN theft, and most states say it's OK, too.
Bttt
Imagine the nightmare if the United States were to go to a national ID card. The politicians will promise cards that are unforgeable, but of course there is no such thing. The cards will have to be linked to a government database (or many). One error in the data could cost you dearly.
This wasn't much of a problem until the military did away with serial numbers and went to using social security numbers. Prior to that, if you marked your social security number on your property in case of theft, the federal gov't would not tell Law enforcement who that number was issued to.
There was another thread about this subject the other day. It is a one big mixed up mess.
I had a long conversation with an IT guy who oversaw the Navy switching from Navy Serial Numbers to Social Security Numbers. It was almost a disaster.
Part of the problem was that some congresscritter decided it would be a good thing, so he stuck it into a Defense Appropriation bill, and gave the Navy 6 months to comply --- 6 months to change every piece of software in the Navy, because they all keyed their records to the Navy Serial number.
Another part of the problem was the discovery that the Social Security Administration had not been exactly scrupulous about giving a number to a single individual. For example, it seems that some little old lady in Chicago issued the same Social Security number to a dozen "john smith"s over a 30 year period, because, after all, they all had the same name, so they should have the same number; and she wasn't the only one, and that was not the only name it occurred to. What do you expect from the drones that work at the Social Security Department?
During the switchover, the Navy had to get new social security numbers for an incredibly large number of its sailors.
They finally got it down to one name with two sailors - one which had gone AWOL in Vietnam, and the other who had retired after honorable service. The first time the honorable sailor went to a PX to buy some groceries, and presented his ID, and the clerk entered it into the automated system ... all the MPs in the world arrived and surrounded him and his wife with guns drawn, arresting him for going AWOL while in a combat zone. It took several months to sort that out. This happened more than once. So he finally got a letter signed by the Secretary of the Navy that said ... this is not the AWOL John Smith, and if you have any questions, call this phone number.
... a predictable problem with digital IDs. Coming to you in the near future ...
This woman got screwed. I would go down to the FBI and have an agent research me electronically for anything wrong. They already have a complete background check on me and even know what color toilet paper I use. So that shouldn't take much time.
There are things you can do to prevent that.
1. Only use the ATM at your bank and use cash as much as possible. And don't leave your reciept there.
2. Don't use gas stations that require you to punch in your PIN like ARCO.
3. Your SSN is only given to somebody in person when needed and not over any electronic device at all.
4. Shred personal documents and clean off dinner plates on top of that.
5. Dress like Joe Blow if you are worth a lot, when you can. (I've spotted Hollywood actors dressing like slobs so they can do normal things like go to a mall without a hassle. And CEOs in Levis and sneakers)
"there is still no federal law prohibiting SSN theft,"
If that is true, they need to pass a law and make it a felony. Identity theft undermines faith in the financial system. That is not acceptable.
Worse yet, most states would not bother to take the time to investigate. They would drop that one on you.
This is the reason the problem persists. The government is taking in millions, maybe billions, from the false use of SSN#s. That is money that never needs paying back as the fake users never file for SS. The owner of the true number gets credit for all the taxes paid, unless the mismatched name excludes that and then the government just spends it, so if that is all that is stolen the real owner doesn't lose.
Bottom line, the government doesn't want to fix it.
thanks dd
I think it will be a big pain for the real owner. I guess it would be best to get an earnings' statement from the Social Security Administration every year.
This is from an article MSNBC.com did last year.
The Secret List Of ID Theft Victims
With every paycheck, U.S. workers pay FICA taxes, destined for Social Security funds. But each year, millions of payments are made to the agency with mismatched names and numbers.
The Social Security Administration has no idea who deserves credit for the taxes paid by those wage earnings -- so no one gets it.
[snip]
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