Congratulations, You May Have Your Own SSN Pen Pal In Micronesia
If you get a call from a debt collector for a loan you never took out, and your Social Security number starts with a zero, try this excuse: "[My SSN] ended up linked to a Micronesian man who defaulted on a disaster loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration."
What happened to AP reporter Holly Ramer is sort of the legalized equivalent to identity theft. There's no criminal mastermind behind it, just government neglect and a bunch of passing the buck.
The problem involves three Pacific island nations, each of which has its own, independent Social Security Administration. The three — the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau — grant defense rights in the region to the U.S., and in exchange receive aid, including grants and loans after disasters.
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Some federal agencies collect locally-issued Social Security numbers from grant and loan applicants and report them to credit bureaus as if they were U.S. numbers, regardless of whether the numbers already are in use.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture has known for years that it creates "overlapping" Social Security numbers when granting loans in the three island nations, said Donald Etes of the agency's rural development office in Hawaii. The office that processes loans is working on a fix, but there have been no software or policy changes yet, he said.
One of the problems is that two of the three Pacific Island nations use 8-digit Social Security codes, but U.S. computer systems add a zero to the front of them—which then makes them identical to SSNs that have already been assigned to residents in New Hampshire and Maine.
Bottom line: If your U.S. number starts with 002-6, 003-9, 005-7 or 007-8, it could match a number in Micronesia. Numbers that start 006-4 could match numbers in Palau. Those that start with 004 could match numbers in the Marshall Islands.
In all, Ramer estimates about 135,000 numbers are in co-existence, but none of the major credit reporting agencies has any way of filtering for the problem. And since it's an error and not theft, the FTC won't get involved.
Ramer was unlucky enough to share a SSN and a bad loan from your Pacific Island doppelganger, something that she estimates has probably happened to about 200 other Americans.
"Some Social Security Numbers Duplicated" [Fox News] (Thanks to Marisa!)
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Comments:
I'm sure this kind of screw up won't happen when the government takes over health care.
well.... at least they make really nice shirts there! LOL!
@Dr_Doofus: Of course not, because your social security number will never be used as any sort of national or international identification number.
Or, at least, that's what they told us when the Social Security Act was being drawn up in the 1930s.
Sharing a few things in common with the story's OP, this makes me a little nervous.
If the US can't do something like organize public healthcare, we need to take their nukes away from them. Every other modern country seems to be capable to do it on a mass scale.
@Dr_Doofus: Private health insurers don't make mistakes.
Denials of coverage are intentional and meant to keep the CEOs of Aetna, Cigna, etc. getting $20 million a year. Screw the patients, screw the doctors - the CEO needs another ivory backscratcher!
@Dr_Doofus: Well, the federal government can't screw up health care more than the insurance companies have screwed up health care, and I mean that as the insult it most definitely is.
@varro: Thank you, that was my first thought.
Private insurers do make pretty bloody big mistakes. When my insurer failed to credit a payment of over $1000, it took me several months, in which I had to write the company CEO and make tons of calls to people throughout the Southeast, to finally get it fixed.
People, whether they work in government or private industry, have been known to make mistakes from time to time.
@Dr_Doofus: Seriously? You SERIOUSLY had to start another health care flame war? WTF. Someone should give you a star, just so it can be taken away again.
"Ruling out the icecaps melting, meteors becoming crashing into us, the ozone layer leaving, and the sun exploding, we're definitely going to blow ourselves up." --[www.albinoblacksheep.com]
FALSE. We're going to screw ourselves over with shit like this, because of a lack of foresight and programming ability. Didn't ANYONE pay attention to Y2K? Seriously?
@ElizabethD: Well, at least if you have a complaint with your private health insurance, you can complain to them. Then to your State Insurance board. Then maybe to the FTC and probably other State and Federal agencies. And here at Consumerist and local TV stations. You can even take them to small claims. At some point, something may be done about it.
If the Fed screws up, you are now very limited in your ability to complain and get resolution.
@SacraBos: Hahahaha...I have a letter from the Texas insurance board that agrees that River Ranch Radiology totally overcharged me but sadly also informs me that they have absolutely no power to force them to reduce the charge. And no amount of arguing has worked on them either. So I had to pay the after-the-MRI extra charges (not like I could return the MRI) and there was zero help on any of it.
But back home in Canada, all of the financials were between my doctor and the Ontario government, all completely out of my hands, so I had none of the stress, none of the wasted time on phone calls, and none of the cost (and at that time for me, it literally was none of the cost, because I made very little money at a crappy job and paid almost zero in taxes).
I don't know how many F*CKING TIMES I HAVE TO SAY THIS, SAME SSN does not = SAME IDENTITY OR SAME CREDIT REPORT!
The credit bureaus ARE aware of this issue and *DO* have filters in place for this kind of thing. Your credit report does not = your ssn. The credit bureaus look for common factors - Name, Date of Birth, Address/Location to match the SSN to. So If you're John Smith SSN 078-05-1120 with DOB 01/01/1979. And Pacific Islander Jake Caldwell DOB 09/11/2001 submits 078-05-1120 as 'his ssn', IT *WILL NOT EFFECT YOU OR YOUR CREDIT, AND MOST LIKELY YOU WILL NEVER EVEN KNOW NOR HAVE ANY REASON TO CARE!*
@MichaelBrazell: I am still looking for the opt out forms for social security since it was voluntary at its inception. Anyone know where I can find these elusive opt out forms? Anyone? Bueller?
@Lucky225: But if a collector began skip-tracing and began, albeit incorrectly, following up with the wrong person it's going to take some time to clear up the matter.
"But your SSN is xxx-xx-xxxx, right?"
"And your address is ______________, right?"
Granted, this is where verification of debt comes into play. For agencies that play by the rules, it shouldn't be too much of a hassle, but it is a hassle nonetheless that the otherwise uninvolved average citizen has to endure.
@Lucky225: RTFA. If what you say is 100% true, this article would NEVER have been written. Someone else's debt was traced to the article's author precisely because of the SSN overlap, and for no other reason.
@verdantpine: That was most likley not a mistake they were probably just hope you'd either miss it or give up trying to get it back.
Relax new Englanders. They only give micro loans to Micronesians. The most you'll owe is $10, a carton of Camles, and 4 tins of sardines.
@Lucky225: The problem is that saying it doesn't, even as you yourself note, make it universally true. Reports are legion of same-name conflations in credit reports, for instance. While it's not clear from the article whether this has reached the OP's credit report (yet, anyway), it's reached the collection agency that's bought the debt, and I would doubt that the credit report bureaus would do anything other than note her denial if the collection agency reports on the debt to the bureaus.
200 people isn't a lot, in the scheme of things, but that's still a lot of possible grief for people in that number.
@SacraBos: I doubt they will leave the feedback area out of the calculation. Of course there will need to be avenues for consumers to complain and otherwise challenge decisions.
No, if it's done like up North, you'll get a special healthcare number and card. You will need the card to receive free medical care, and at any time you don't have it you will (by default) pay for medical care until you can prove you do have it with you. Yes, even if the doctor has the number on file and knows your card isn't expired, if you don't have it on you, you are billed.
This card will expire every 5 years and you will spend 1 1/2 hours each time waiting in the health card office to get it renewed. If they don't have such an office in your city, a "roving" office will stop by once a month, and you can wait for even longer on whatever special day they are there for. And it must be done in person, since they put a photo on the card. Unless you're lucky, like me, and were "grandfathered" in because you have a non-expiring non-photograph card, in which case every time you use it you will be begged to get a new card (FROM MY COLD, DEAD, HANDS).
And, if you get poor healthcare, yes, unless it's actionable (eg: Operation on the wrong side of your body--just happened to my grandma, but it didn't come as a surprise to me) your complaints fall on deaf ears. You're welcome to find a new family doctor for the small things, but doctors have waitlists longer than the bread lines in Russia during the fall of communism. That's if they are accepting patients, most doctors aren't.
And you don't trust the hospital your wife will have a baby in (You know, because it has the highest death rate in the nation)? When you tell the obstetrician that you plan to drive your wife another 5 minutes to a different hospital, he will tell you that unless that hospital expects the baby will be popping out in the next 30 mins, they'll just send her in an ambulance (that you will pay for) to his hospital.
*sigh*
Enjoy your free healthcare when it comes! As the French say "Let them eat cake!"
This line stopped me and I really couldn't keep a train of thought after it.
"...grant defense rights in the region to the U.S., and in exchange receive aid, including grants and loans after disasters."
So the US defends them, but has to pay aid, grants and loans for the privilege? hehe I understand some of the reasons this is likely, but I just can't get passed how funny it sounds!
@Lucky225: And how many articles have we seen here where people get harassed by bill collectors, etc.. because their name is similar to someone else, but no other information is even close?
@Mackinstyle: Like Canada, whose top doctor admitted their socialized medicine system was 'imploding.'
@Gnort: Not really. I think it's more along the lines they let us have military bases and/or defense installations on their soil. In exchange, we loan them some money every now and then, which they do have to pay back. That's just an educated (as in pulled right out of my ass) guess though..I could be wrong :)
@shepd: I've had friends and family members die because they couldn't afford to pursue treatment for a known condition until it was too late to stop it.
Sold.
@Lucky225: ahem. sorry to do this... its Affect, not Effect.
it will AFFECT you, it has had an EFFECT on me.
@Lucky225: Having pulled hundreds of credit reports at one of my previous jobs, I can say without any doubt that the these filters don't always work, or are not always applied. Many times people had random addresses listed in their reports, meaning that their info got merged with other people's. Fortunately, it was rare that someone disputed a bad credit item entirely, it was mostly an issue of incorrect demographics. But if the demos are wrong, it's only a matter of time before these filters end up not working properly, because the parameters used to run them are already flawed.
@Gnort: Remember that nobody is attacking Micronesia, unless you count the test ballistic missiles that we lob their way.
@Framling:
You see, again, that's how socialism is different!
In soviet Russia, it's the unknown (or just plain unusual) conditions that you have a hard time getting treatment for.
Just try getting some of the more exotic (but proven medically legitimate) cancer treatments in Canada for free. Good luck!
But hey, your broken arm will be fixed in a snap! WOOHOO!
Wonderful! My SSN falls into both of those countries ranges.
@duffbeer703: As part of the Manhattan project, the US performed nuclear testing in Micronesia. This is why the US supports this region. The citizens of these islands are also free to come to the US and receive government benefits here.
@Dr_Doofus: Or clash for clunkers in which the government has paid back 2% of the dealers and the dealers are stranded out there in hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to them.
but this conversation is insane. You have 2 kinds of people
1) the kind that know government cant do anything right
2) the kind who think the same fail ideas will work if we can just get different people to try them.
oy vay!!!