This scandal effected 3.5 million South Carolina citizens and has largely been forgotten but in light of this years IRS scandal, I believe, it just may take on a new importance.
Probably originated from Obama.
Ping!
Meanwhile here in SC, I got a call from Bank of American yesterday saying my account has been compromised and that they are sending me a new debit card.
Called them back to get more information and the girl said they couldn’t tell me at this time what happened, other than it was likely a stolen database/computer/cash register of somewhere I had possibly bought something at.
Strange.
Our family hasn’t forgotten it.
We were “victims” in that FUBAR event (including our now adult children). SC offered a paltry & temporary and monitoring plan. We took it further and completely locked down our credit with all major credit bureaus. We don’t apply for credit now (a good thing, really) without having to go thru the unlock process. Keeping up with passwords, secret answers and assigned reference numbers for 4 people at 3 different credit bureaus isn’t hard... but it’s a nuisance.
We had a credit monitoring plan prior to this particular gubment misfeasance... took advantage of the free year offered by SC, and will keep this plan after the freebie expires. Will probably now have to keep a protection plan FOREVER.
The SSN was a retirement account number. It has become the national personal identifier. It was created without any control of any kind, not even a check digit. If you don’t know what a check digit is you should not be reading this. All government agencies use it to identify the individual. States use it for drivers licenses.
They blame the hacker, but the source is their own ignorance.
It happened in NM too, it was NM state retirees, PERA. Earlier, it happened in the federal agriculture program.
In both cases there were letters informing of what had happened and then an offer to pay for credit monitoring.