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If someone has my social security number and name and address I'm pretty sure they can just impersonate me however they like (and I have to give my social secur
by tdb7893 3y ago
If someone has my social security number and name and address I'm pretty sure they can just impersonate me however they like (and I have to give my social security number to so many random institutions that it isn't that secret). Honestly if someone steals my mail at certain times of year it's pretty likely they could steal my whole identity
- gumby 3y agoI found telling people "Sorry, I'm a foreigner and don't have one" satisfies almost anyone (obviously not a bank or anyone tax-related). But plenty of companies ask for it and would rather find a way to do business than turn me away.
- ckorhonen 3y agoMoved to the US from the UK over a decade ago, my US-based bank still has my SSN as 000-00-0000.
- giantg2 3y agoWow. Most competent places have at least SSN format verification to weed out one's like this.
- Muromec 3y agoAnd what does an operator put into the system when hearing "I don't have one?". Yeah, this. This is on purpose.
- giantg2 3y agoNot true at all. If it's a required field it should be valid. If it's not required, then null is the correct value.
- coolspot 3y agoI’am also a BofA client and can confirm - they use 000-00-0000 as an SSN when you don’t have one.
- thelittleone 3y agoCan open a BofA account without a TFN or SSN?
- coolspot 3y agoYes, if you say codewords along the lines “I have just arrived to the US and don’t yet have an SSN”. Worked for me.
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoMajority bank will specifically give you a bank account explicitly not requiring an SSN.
- Muromec 3y agoThat makes an unreasonable assumption that everybody across the whole industry is not just competent and can be trusted to have it together, but they also manage to achieve their important goals (which are not always having the cleanest code or architecture) using the same architectural dogmas as you do. One can define a datatype as FormattedValue | null, make a tuple of (value, present), have a special empty value or do all of that at once, because parts of the dataset were separately inherited during the merger.
- giantg2 3y agoI'm not saying it doesn't happen - I'm saying it's not the correct practice. When talking about financial services, this sort of garbage data could lead to compliance issues and financial penalties. Typically those mergers end up with remediation initiatives to at least ensure that all the invalid data is nulled out, or facilitate it's collection if it's critical.
- gumby 3y agoMy mobile phone account has a bogus number (not generated by me!) as my SSN. Fortunately I know what it is so can recite it on a call. Which is why I don't want them to have my SSN in the first place!
- Muromec 3y agoIt’s all fun and games until your bank reports something to the government under this SSN and it affects a person to whom its really assigned. Bonus points if “something“ has fiscal consequences for either of you. Seriously, this is not kind of shenanigans you want to be doing for no reason at all, simply because the reason would be invented by someone else.
- gumby 3y agoAs my original comment says I don’t do this for anything tax-ish (for the same reason you mention). But there is no reason a phone company need know my SSN. Or the pharmacy.
- ahazred8ta 3y agoI was at a bank-related company. At least 2% of our clients' SSNs had typos. :-( Sadz.
- giantg2 3y agoWell, typos or bad data from the client is a little more difficult to handle than what is basically a regex form validation.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y agoFrom the client? All those typos come from bank clerks.
- giantg2 3y agoIt doesn't really matter who the typo comes from. It's going through a form in some computer system, any of which should have form validation.
- eek2121 3y agoAs far as I am aware, that SSN is technically possible. Years ago SSNs could be traced back to the state/location of birth by looking at the first few digits (mine is like that), but they were changed to be completely random a while ago.
- giantg2 3y agoEven if the first 3 were area codes, the others still make it invalid. https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0110201035 https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0110201035
- Turing_Machine 3y agoThe federal government stopped using the SSAN as an identifier for their own employees years ago. It's probably well past time for legislation prohibiting anyone else for using it for that purpose, preferably with some teeth. As you say, most people's SSAN has been compromised many, many times.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago> It's probably well past time for legislation prohibiting anyone else for using it for that purpose, preferably with some teeth. No, it is time for legislation prohibiting people from being held responsible for a business’s lack of due diligence. If the lender wants to use SSN to give out thousands of dollars, that is entirely on the lender. The businesses will automatically stop using mechanisms of identity verification that cause them to lose money.
- eek2121 3y agoWhile I do somewhat agree, the SSN used to be just a number that the SSA uses to identify you. It was never meant for things like credit and bank accounts.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoIs it not still that? The only problem is the government has foisted the costs of the lender’s due diligence onto the general public. If a lender wants to collect on debts, they should need more proof than an SSN/DOB combo, and no one should have to spend time correcting their credit report from no fault of their own.
- Turing_Machine 3y agoThose aren't mutually exclusive at all. You could both limit the victim's responsibility for identity theft, and prohibit businesses for using the SSAN as a means of identification, with a whopping fine attached. > The businesses will automatically stop using mechanisms of identity verification that cause them to lose money. You mean like if they were forced to pay a gigantic fine?