| Comment Number: | 531096-00280 |
| Received: | 9/5/2007 3:15:49 PM |
| Organization: | SLI - Surveillance Locates Investigations |
| Commenter: | Lee Wolfe |
| State: | CA |
| Agency: | Federal Trade Commission |
| Rule: | Private Sector Use of SSNs |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
I have worked as private investigator in the state of California for over 6 years. The types of investigations I handle deal in the theft and fraud of both personal/private funds and government funds, through falsely filing personal injury claims, disability claims, workers comp claims and various other employment risk management issues. My company also assists in the location of individuals for numerous reasons but include for the collection of child support, alimony, debt collection, business needs in the private sector such as escrow officers that need to locate a previous owner or heir to a piece of property to get a signature and thus save the seller thousands of dollars in closing costs, real estate agents that wish to develop a piece of property but need to locate the owner. We locate persons for many other reasons in addition to the above mentioned. When we handle cases such as these we take great care in keeping the information confidential and secure. We do not provide SSN's to people we merely use an SSN as a tool in completing the task we have been assigned by the client and without the SSN's the task would be near impossible. Millions if not billions of extra dollars would be lost year in fraudulent claims that would be filed and the claimant could not be found. Though they are required to provide accurate information as to where they live...etc...many times the information a claimant provides in not complete or purposely falsified so that the claimant will not have to worry about surveillance or others taking action against them. Without the abitly to obtain or use a SSN my company would also be required to spend thousands more per case to find a dead beat parent who might owe money to a custodial parent or tens of thousands in Alimony. I totally agree that there are those that would do anything to get their hands on a SSN for criminal reasons. Does this mean a fully licensed and insured PI such as myself should not be able to help a citizen or government entity seek justice or peace of mind and get them what they are owed? Instead of taking action all the way across the board, make sure that those of us who do not violate the law and use SSN's in legal, ethical and moral ways are still able to continue with our work and and please do not take away a great tool that we have been using for many years. The SSN is what ties a persons life together. Without it the private investigation field will become much more costly and many people will not be able to afford the services of a PI. Thanks and sorry for rambling!