SSN Overlap With Micronesia Causes Trouble For Woman 494
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."
Re:what i would say (Score:5, Informative)
And when they keep calling you at your job, and insist on speaking to your boss, and call your family, and eventually physically show up at your door, what then?
Re:what i would say (Score:5, Informative)
Fuck you! i do not owe you any money so you sort it out, it is not my problem
Actually if you wanted to be a real dick you could sue the collection agencies rather easily and collect at least $1,000 per violation. I would recommend that the people who are receiving these calls read up on the 'Fair Debt Collection Practices Act'. Send a cease and desist order to the debt collector as provided for by the FDCPA and when they call you again file suit. Wait a few months and cash your check.
Re:what i would say (Score:5, Informative)
I'd live for that day.
a little metadata (Score:3, Informative)
looks like the data (ssn) needs a little metadata (issuing authority, distinguished name) in order to make it work.
Re:what i would say (Score:5, Informative)
And when they keep calling you at your job, and insist on speaking to your boss, and call your family, and eventually physically show up at your door, what then?
Then you send them a cease and desist order as provided for by the FDCPA (fair debt collection practices act). If they are stupid enough to continue collection efforts after receiving it then you file suit against them in Federal court and collect $1,000 for each violation. They'll soon stop calling you when they realize that each phone call is going to cost them a thousand bucks.
What debt collector shows up at your door anyways? I've never heard of that. If they had the balls to try that with me I'd ask them once nicely to get off my property and if they declined I would "encourage" them to leave with more forceful measures.
Remember that a debt collector has no power or authority over you. Their main weapon is intimidation. They are counting on scaring you into paying them money and will use all manner of threats and lies to achieve this end. Other than that their only possible remedy is to sue you. This is an empty threat for the most part though because they almost always lack the documentation that would be required to win a lawsuit. They bank on collecting default judgments when the defendants fail to appear and aren't prepared to deal with someone shows up and contests the matter.
Re:Idiot programmers (Score:2, Informative)
Re:what i would say (Score:5, Informative)
That really can be effective. My household kept receiving calls from one collection agency that had our phone number (nothing to do with SSNs, identity theft, etc., but still annoying, especially since it was usually an automated call). For whatever reason, they kept calling even after we told them that the person they were looking for no longer used our number. So, I mailed off a FDCPA [ftc.gov] Sec. 805(c) demand that they cease communication with us.
The next time they called (with a real person fortunately for them), I pointed out that I had sent a written demand that they stop calling and that their call was in violation of the FDCPA. I didn't have to be mean...the calls stopped cold.
Re:what i would say (Score:5, Informative)
Instead of insulting a poor call-center rep, if a collection agency is trying to charge for a debt that's not yours, you need to do the following. (note: this only applies if you are in the USA)
1- Ask their address. They are legally obligated to give it to you.
2- Write a letter to them, invoking the Fair Collection Practices Act and demanding that they cease collections
3- If they can't prove the debt is yours, they must cease collecting and inform the credit bureaus of this.
4- There is no four
Re:what i would say (Score:5, Informative)
Brandishing a firearm on your own property when someone refuses to leave = defense of property in almost every state in the Union.
Re:what i would say (Score:5, Informative)
File suit? Oh yeah, that'll cost you less than $1k... : /
A 1k judgement falls under small claims court. That doesn't require a lawyer and it's cheap as hell in terms of fees.
Re:wow (Score:5, Informative)
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 [wikipedia.org] in place that did that. Imagine how lucky we'd be if Congress had passed it way back in 1970......
Re:Why do "credit report agencies" have immunity? (Score:2, Informative)
Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that fell through a time warp from 1,000 years in the future defines the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybnernetics Corporation as "A bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came."
Re:what i would say (Score:3, Informative)
>>>In several states you are limited to "physical force" to deal with a trespasser
Right. And then the criminal sues you because you broke his arm or leg or whatever, as is happening with a local Pennsylvanian who hit a thief with a bat, to stop him from stealing his truck. The police arrested the homeowner, and the criminal is suing for medical expenses.
Us poor citizens just can't win in this damn government. Time to craft a new one IMHO.
Re:what i would say (Score:5, Informative)
Brandishing isn't deadly force. Shooting them is.
Use your brain you fucking moron. What are you going to do if you "brandish" it and they call your bluff and still refuse to leave? Worse yet, what are you going to do if they make a grab for it? Shoot them? Have fun explaining to the jury why you escalated the situation to one of life and death when your life wasn't in danger to begin with.
I'm as pro-gun as they come but if I was on your jury I'd convict your ass in a heartbeat if that was the way it went down. A firearm is a last resort, intended for situations where the choice is kill or be killed.
Re:Idiot programmers (Score:3, Informative)
From TFS:
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.
Since the loan originated in the US, the US would be the one to administer it. Part of getting a loan in the US is that copies of it get sent to the reporting bureaus. So, the Micronesians gave a SSN as an identifier, and some idiot somewhere decided it would be great if they just used that to identify the people on the application, regardless of country of origin, which is GP's point.
Re:what i would say (Score:4, Informative)
Right. And then the criminal sues you because you broke his arm or leg or whatever, as is happening with a local Pennsylvanian who hit a thief with a bat, to stop him from stealing his truck. The police arrested the homeowner, and the criminal is suing for medical expenses.
If the police arrested the man there's more to the story than meets the eye. None of the cops that I've met want to arrest a taxpayer who defended themselves against a scumbag. If they did it then I suspect they had reason.
Regarding the lawsuit, I'd say "bring it on". I've been in front of juries before and I'd take my chances with one if I was being sued by some criminal thug. I'd either win the lawsuit or I'd spend every last penny of my money on legal expenses and then file bankruptcy. Of course I'm a spiteful SOB like that ;)
Re:Finally, an opportunity! (Score:1, Informative)
Most Micronesians aren't foreigners. It's quite a clusterfuck as to what they are (depending on the island), but those in Guam, the Northern Marianas, Saipan, Tinian, Rota, American Samoa, etc are generally either US citizens or US nationals. Depends if their island/government is a territory of the US or what they call in "free association" with the US (Palau for example).
With that said, Micronesia is a beautiful place to go. Spent quite some time on Guam. Excellent scuba diving.
Re:Do SSN's wrap around? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
That is correct.
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.
No. SSNs do not have any sort of check digit. If they did, then there would be a maximum of 100 Million numbers given, and they already would have ran out.
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.
The prefix identifies the state that the person lived in when they applied for a SSN. However, this doesn't really reduce the available numbers, because the state just uses them all up and then gets more prefixes from SSA.
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?
So far, approximately 360 Million SSNs have been assigned. They will run out eventually, and we will have to a new system, but not for a little while.
Do SSNs get reused?
No.
Re:what i would say (Score:4, Informative)
Saying you owe something you don't is defamation of character, the credit bureaus know that a SSN isn't an unique identifier, there are 304,059,724 people in the US and approximately 18 million people use a SSN assigned to someone else. Even with almost 809 million possible SSNs, because the first three digits are an Area number collisions are very likely and sooner or later will be unavoidable.
Re:Do SSN's wrap around? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:what i would say (Score:3, Informative)
While this may only apply to Texas, It appears that some juries are in fact buying.
http://www.newser.com/story/31381/no-charges-for-texas-man-who-shot-neighbors-burglars.html [newser.com]
As to the point about calling your bluff when you brandish your firearm, I think you could make an argument that they were assaulting you if they tried to make a grab for your weapon. Plus if you didn't really want to shoot them guns are quite effective as a bludgeoning device. Mmmmmm Pistol Whip.
Re:what i would say (Score:3, Informative)
Specifically, the "all parties" states are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
Re:what i would say (Score:3, Informative)
Legal ramifications are not going to be a high priority at the time. Convict if you must, it's better than the alternative for me.
I think you've misunderstood the discussion at hand. You are operating under the assumption that your life is in mortal jeopardy. If that was actually the case then you'll have my vote for acquittal and I'll buy you a beer after the trial is over.
The discussion at hand relates to a debt collector who refuses to leave your property when asked. Nobody said anything about him becoming violent or anything of that nature. This is nothing more than simple trespass and I personally think that introducing a firearm into such a situation is an unnecessary and unwise escalation.
Re:what i would say (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, well, I know someone who had that same attitude. He heard noises one night, saw a figure in his living room and opened fire. Guess who he shot? Some dumbass drunk high school student who thought he was crawling back into the open window at his parents house. Thankfully the kid lived, but can you imagine if he hadn't? Could you live with yourself if you killed someone who turned out not to be a threat to you?
Actually, yes I could live with myself, just as much as I could live with myself if the drunk kid had hit me head on on the road and he didn't survive the accident. It was his one negligence that would have caused his death in both cases. Anyone comes wandering into my house unannounced and uninvited at night and they're dead - simple as that. It's not worth taking the risk. Drunk high school student, crack head looking for cash, or simple psychopath don't appear too different visually in the wee hours of the morning, and two of those three aren't likely to let you cozily slip off to your "defensible location". Once they've chosen to put themselves in that situation it's too late. If he can't control himself enough that he's so messed up that he's crawling into the wrong house window, then that kid was doing something just as dangerous as taking a car out on the road drunk.
It's personal responsibility. You go unannounced into a strangers house - ESPECIALLY after dark, and there's a very good chance that you're not coming back out. If you put yourself in that position then you have to live (or die) with the consequences.
Re:what i would say (Score:5, Informative)
They were quite stunned when I told them to shut up and start suing.
Yeah, I love this strategy. I was hassled by an agency once that put at the bottom of their initial contact letter "if you do not respond within 14 days we will instruct our lawyers to recover this debt in court." I wrote a response, "Go ahead. Make my day."
Funnily enough, I never heard anything else from them. 6 months later, another agency starts trying to collect...
Re:Not a US Nuclear Submarine incident (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And when you can't get a loan? (Score:3, Informative)
In the UK you have the right under the Data Protection Act to require them to correct inaccurate data they hold about you. If they fail so to do then you should report them [ico.gov.uk] to the Data Protection Commissioner.
Re:what i would say (Score:2, Informative)
"If they are trying to take your property, then there is no reason to come up behind them and hit them in the head. Warn them off. If they come after you, then hit them in the head."
The problem is: you absolutely do not want to give a warning. A criminal is more used to violence that your average joe - be it from gang fights, time in prison, or whatever. Your only chance in a physical confrontation is surprise. Give warning that you are going to hit him with a baseball bat, and he's likely to take the bat away and use it on you. Guess what, the same applies to a gun, unless you have explicitly trained for this sort of situation.
Car theft is in the gray zone, because you have the option of just letting it happen, with no personal confrontation at all. However, if someone is mugging you, or is in your house, they expect a personal confrontation. They are prepared for violence and definitely pose a threat to your life. If you are the type to do so (macho chest-thumping aside, not everyone is), you should shoot first and ask questions of the corpse. In countries where this is illegal, you may want to do it anyway - else you may be the one on the marble slab.
Re the discussion above about the drunken high school student breaking into the house: he deserved to be shot. Maybe you will feel guilty afterwards. But - at that particular moment - you have every reason to assume that some dangerous criminal is breaking in and intends the worst.