SearchBug - People Search Blog

Links for 2012-03-25 [Digg]

2012-03-26T00:00:00-07:00

Lookup Phone Reverse - searchbug's video tutorial library
Phone Reverse Lookup tutorial. Video walks you through a reverse phone lookup.

1940 Census Records Available for Free

2012-03-21T06:26:26Z

1940 Census Records Available for Free

If you’ve ever tried to navigate or build your family tree, research your ancestors, or look-up your grand parents old address to see if they lived next to someone famous then you’ve probably tried to use the 1930 census.

When my youngest son turned six last summer I realized that my dad was six in 1930 so I decided to try and locate the 1930 census from when he was a six year old boy. I found the page and it reveals some really interesting information.

What’s great about reading census data is you get to see a lot of information such as the State, county, city, street name, house number, names, relation, home data if they owned or rented or if they had a radio or lived on a farm. Personal descriptions include gender, color or race, age at last birthday, marital status and age at first marriage. You can also use the data to estimate year of birth for searching other records. The education information includes facts such as if they could read or write or if they attended school. The 1930 Census also shows place of birth to locate immigration records. Once they release the 1940 Census well dive into what can be found.

Here’s a video from Ancestry that explains a lot about the census page.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The 1940 census will be released online on April 2, 2012 and will be available from the 1940census.archives.gov.

This is where you will be able to access the digitized census records starting on April 2. The digital images will be accessible free of charge at NARA facilities nationwide through our public access computers as well as on personal computers via the internet.

This video demonstrates how far we’ve come in 72 years. As you watch a dramatized review of the major questions relating to general population for the 1940 census schedule, this film demonstrates to enumerators how to accurately identify and enter the names of all members of a household, determine employment status, and identify categories of employment. Try not to laugh too hard when watching this one – wow.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What can you do now in preparation for the opening of the 1940 Census?

Make a list of all the people you want to look for in the 1940 census. Think broadly–ancestors, their siblings, cousins, etc.–anybody to whom you are related.
Collect addresses for these people for whom you plan to search.
Sources for addresses include:
- City Directories (NARA has original Circa 1940 City Directories for Washington, DC. TheLibrary of Congress holds a large nationwide collection of city directories and many libraries hold local directories.)
- The 1930 Census (useful for people who did not move between 1930 and 1940). If you have a person’s enumeration district (ED) number from the 1930 Census you can use “The Converting between 1930 and 1940 Census ED1940s in One Step” search utility athttp://stevemorse.org/census/ed2040.php?year=1940 to find the equivalent ED for the 1940 Census.
- World War II Draft Records (contact the National Archives’ Regional Location for the state in which your ancestor lived)
- Naturalization Petitions or Declarations of Intent filed close to 1940 (contact the National Archives’ Regional Location for the state in which your ancestor lived)

Source: Archives.gov

Many of the questions on the 1940 census are the standard ones: name, age, gender, and race, education, and place of birth. But the 1940 census also asks many new questions. The instructions ask the enumerator to enter an [a circled x] after the name of the person furnishing the information about the family; whether the person worked for the CCC, WPA, or NYA the week of March 24-30, 1940; and income for the 12 months ending December 31, 1939. The 1940 also has a supplemental schedule for two names on each page. The supplemental schedule asks the place of birth of the person’s father and mother; the person’s usual occupation, not just what they were doing the week of March 24-30, 1940; and for all women who are or have been married, has this woman been married more than once and age at first marriage.

For a complete list of questions visit 1940 Census Questions

Need information on more current census? Check out the 2010 Census statistic

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Credit and Collections Compliance Alert

2012-03-15T04:38:11Z

Credit and Collections Compliance Alert

Attention credit and collections professionals. Debt collectors must continue to obtain prior express consent to call a consumer’s cell phone number when using an autodialer or prerecorded message.

On February 15, 2012, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a Report and Order under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) imposing new restrictions on autodialed and prerecorded telemarketing calls (robocalls).

A recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling on the TCPA “Telephone Consumer Protection Act” has caused some confusion for collection agents, collection agencies, and some of our clients that use our phone list cleaning tools to identify line type.

The ruling talks about a debt collector’s ability to call a consumer’s cell phone through the use of an autodialer.

Please note the following regarding compliance with the TCPA for debt collectors:

The recent ruling does not change the existing requirements for debt collectors to comply with the TCPA.
A debt collector must still obtain a consumer’s prior express consent to call a consumer’s cell phone using an autodialer or prerecorded message.
Links to site regarding TCPA Compliance

The final rule only applies to telemarketing calls and does not apply to collection calls.

Debt collectors must still comply with the TCPA requirements as they existed before the ruling. This means credit and collection professionals should continue to Identify Phone Number Line Type in efforts to remain in compliance. If you do not know if you are calling a cell phone, landline or VoIP line, you can use our free line type identification tool for single searches or our online batch tool larger lists.

Specifically, the Report and Order implements four new restrictions:

Telemarketers must get express written consent before placing robocalls. Consent can be provided electronically.
The “established business relationship” exception to the FCC’s existing telemarketing rules no longer applies to robocalls. Under the TCPA, this exception allowed robocalls to residential lines when the caller had an established business relationship with the consumer.
Telemarketers placing robocalls must include an automated, interactive opt-out mechanism on each call so the called party can cease further calls.
The Commission’s existing rules include a 3% limit on the percentage of dropped or abandoned calls that a telemarketer may incur using predictive dialers over a 30-day period. The current rules allow telemarketers to average the number of dropped or abandoned calls over multiple campaigns. This rule is modified so that the number of dropped or abandoned calls will be measured on a “per campaign” standard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7GHlPimTsgNote that this information is not intended to be legal advice and may not be used as legal advice. Legal advice must be tailored to the specific circumstances of each case. Every effort has been made to assure that this information is up-to-date as when published. It is not intended to be a full and exhaustive explanation of the law in any area, nor should it be used to replace the advice of your own counsel.

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Google Releases Personal Profiles | People and Pages

2012-01-12T23:07:53Z

Google Releases Personal Profiles | People and Pages

You can search through Google People and Pages now to find all sorts of topics and people you might be interested in following. Going to the Grand Canyon, search Grand Canyon in Google Pages and watch publicly shared video’s from others. You never know who you might follow.

Google Releases Personal, Profiles, People In Search

Google said Tuesday it has added three search features. Personal results lets people search and find information about themselves, such as Google+ photos and posts, both those that belong to the person and those shared with others viewable on results pages. Profiles in Search, both in auto-complete and results, enables users to find people they’re close to or might be interested in following. People and Pages aims to help searchers find people’s profiles and Google+ ages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable searchers to follow them with just a few clicks.

Google search gets its biggest change in a decade with a dose of …

These social search integrations, which Google is calling “search plus your world,” can be toggled on and off by using the “person” and “world” icons in the top right corner of search results. It’s so easy it takes just one click to disable or enable the new features.

Google Search gets more ‘Social and Personal’

Now it’s easy to find People and Pages via Google search. Just typing the first few letters of the person’s name brings up a personalized profile prediction in autocomplete. Selecting a predicted profile takes you to the results …

Search, plus Your World: Related people and pages

Learn more at www.google.com It’s now easier than ever to discover and connect with other people who share your interests—right on Google. Find people and pages related to your search.

Google Personal Results, Profiles, People and Pages In Search – CrazyEngineers VoiCE

ZDNet (blog)Google Personal Results, Profiles, People and Pages In SearchCrazyEngineers VoiCENow the feature also allows you to connect to the person instantly using the Google Instant. That also means if you are signed into Google+ you can always ad …

What I find kind of cool is that when I’m logged into Google and search people by name, I can see if they are sharing anything in Google plus publicly and if I like it, I can add them to my circles right there.

This is done via the Profile in Search feature. This feature searches the particular name throughout the web and comes up with suggestions as you type in the first few letters of the person you want to search. This will then look up in Google+ and other relevant pages for information.

Now the feature also allows you to connect to the person instantly using the Google Instant. That also means if you are signed into Google+ you can always add the person to your circle directly from the search result page.

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How to avoid identity theft during the Holidays

2011-11-24T21:13:30Z

How to avoid identity theft during the Holidays

Phishing:

Phishing became one of the most costly and incredibly financially rewarding kinds of identity theft. Significantly more phishing scams are being operated as a result of organized criminal gangs, meticulously created and adequately financed in order to dupe even the most careful shopper.

Phishing utilizes convincing-looking yet fraudulent email messages as well as internet pages. These tactics are basically exact duplicates of well-known and respected companies such as chain stores as well as financial institutions in an effort to fool a person into disclosing sensitive personal financial details which they can use in order to gain access to an individual’s personal information.

Typically the emails generally have some variety of an alert for which you really should modify the account or verify the account details to protect yourself from getting the account suspended.

This sort of scheme is especially effective approaching the holiday season, a period when absolutely no person desires her or his banking accounts or charge cards suspended.

Phishing scams account for more than $10 billion last year, and it’s estimated that nearly 10 million Americans receive phishing messages annually and roughly Two million shoppers click on the embeded links and end up victims of the fraud.

Tips On How To protect yourself.

Take notice. Never ever provide any sort of confidential, personal financial, PIN, social security number or password to any e-mail inquiry. That means if you respond to the message or by way of a web page.

In the event that you receive this kind of message and you may have a relationship (account or membership) with that organization, proceed straight to the main web site of the business in the email received, and get in touch with the customer assistance number listed on the contact us page, and request additional information. Do not ever simply click one of the links within the message simply because the email sender may have spoofed the web site they link users to. And you should not contact any of the numbers provided within the message you received.

Counterfeit Receipts Through Electronic mail:

A fresh deviation of the good old con entails the utilization of e-mail notice regarding receipts for products you didn’t order. Typically the behavior takes advantage of the fact that (One) close to the holiday season most people are working with receipts and for that reason anticipating them; as well as (Two) the fraudster is actually trying to worry people to open up a message attachment you typically could end up being dubious about.

When you open these types of emails or attachments, the fraudsters will attempt to acquire security passwords along with other information and facts in order to provide them to an identity thief.

Tips On How To protect yourself.

Never open up e-mail attachments if you aren’t anticipating them, even though you may recognize the email sender. Make certain you’ve got up-to-date anti-virus (we recommend ESET) as well as anti-spyware security.

The “Hard-to-find” Bargain:

A few years back a large number of internet customers had been scammed out of their hard earned money by phony web sites featuring that season’s “must have” present, the Sony PlayStation2.

Each year we anticipate spotting different versions on that concept where identity fraud stands out as the major objective.

What would typically happen after you enter your credit card information you would see a message that would make you believe the sale never went thru. You might see a message like “We’re sorry the computers can be quite busy during this time of year and we were not able to complete your transaction at the moment. Please try again in the future.”

In this case the scammers might have merely snapped up your visa or mastercard number, along with all the other billing information. And, you are not likely to be on your guard given that you think the purchase never really happened.

Tips On How To protect yourself.

Simply buy from web sites you are sure are legitimate. You can do this by checking to make sure they have a Secure connection (you will see HTTPS:// in the address). The “S” after the http means the site is secure. But you should take it one step further and ensure the web site has a contact us page with an address and phone number. Better yet, a toll-free phone number that is also listed in the yellow pages or on another business directory. Of course you can check the SearchBug Yellow pages or use our free Reverse Phone Lookup to double check. And, you can even call the number to make sure someone answers or you get the company voice mail.

Mail Theft:

Postal theft happens to be popular for identity thieves. They may be after whatever could be used to duplicate your identification or merely improve their own savings accounts. Things such as incoming as well as outbound bank checks, financial institution statements, visa or mastercard statements, charge card offers, gift cards in addition to prepaid cards, and in many cases cash.

Tips On How To protect yourself.

Be extremely careful with your inbound as well as outbound postal mail throughout the holiday seasons. Whenever possible, check your mailbox as soon as the postman arrives. And if you’re going away for a few days, be sure to suspend your mail delivery and pick it up at the post office when you return. Another option is to have all mail delivered to a Postal Mail Box “PMB” or a PO Box and you can pick it from a secure location.

Also, sign up for online bill pay and paperless statements to have a few pieces of mail delivered. And if you plan to give chas or gift cards to friends or loved ones, do so in person if you can. If sending large denominations or expensive gifts consider sending them insured or getting delivery confirmation services.

Nearest and Dearest (Family, Friends, Associates):

Among the saddest facts regarding identity fraud, in accordance with numerous reports, is the fact that a good number of identity thefts tend to be perpetrated by individuals known to the target, such as family, friends, neighbors, and even co-workers or roommates.

Tips On How To protect yourself.

Eliminate the temptation. Never leave personal financial details, such as bank account statements, debit cards, checks, or those pre-approved credit or loan applications lying around the house or office. If you’re considering giving someone a check this holiday season, consider a gift card or store certificate instead. Something that can’t be used to duplicate your identify if stolen.

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Verify Phone Lookup

2011-11-22T00:14:30Z

Verify Phone Lookup

SearchBug offers two ways to verify a phone number. If you’re simply trying to verify if a phone number is a cell phone or a land line then the SearchBug Identify Phone Number tool is the simplest solution. You can Identify one phone number at a time at no charge (daily limits apply). If you have batches of phone numbers there is also a manual batch process a self service phone batch process and a SaaS API integrated real-time solution.

If you’re looking to append phone records to verify the line type, OCN, LNP Rate Center or any other type of phone data to a phone list the Searchbug batch and SaaS API tools can save you time and a small fortune. You can clean and append small batches (under 50,000) for as little as $5 per 1,000 and large batches (several million) can be lower than $1 per 1,000. Almost any type of data is available to append.

Collection agencies rely on the system to weed out cell phones to avoid legal issues with calling cell phones for collections. Text message marketing companies rely on the system to weed out the landlines to avoid wasting money trying to send SMS to a land line. Other industries rely on OCN and other identifiers to figure out the Carrier or rate center for targeted marketing programs. It’s amazing how much information you can get from a phone number a $0.005 to $0.02 cents.

And if you’re looking to verify phone lookup, searchbug can help with that too. To Verify a Phone number and lookup the name or other pertinent information searchbug can obtain real-time verified reverse phone lookup information. Simply checkout the reverse phone lookup in the people finder section and conduct a people finder by phone.

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Invalid or Impossible Social Security Numbers

2011-10-12T22:14:02Z

Invalid or Impossible Social Security Numbers

SSNs having the following characteristics are invalid or impossible:

AREA, GROUP, or SERIAL are composed of all zeroes (e.g, 000-45-6789, 123-00-6789, 123-45-0000)
AREA number 666 (never have and never will be issued)
AREA numbers 700 to 728 (Railroad workers through July 1, 1963, then discontinued)
AREA numbers 900-999 (not valid SSNs, but were used for program purposes when state aid to the aged, blind and disabled was converted to a federal program administered by SSA)

Unassigned GROUP numbers

For administrative reasons, GROUP numbers are NOT assigned sequentially but rather follow this order:

ODD, 01 to 09(01, 03, … 09)
EVEN, 10 to 98(10, 12, … 98)
EVEN, 02 to 08(02, 04, … 08)
ODD, 11 to 99 (11, 13, … 99)

Check the latest Social Security Number Monthly Issuance Tableat SSA’s Website for the highest group number assigned for each SSN Area. For example, if the highest group number assigned for area 999 is 72 (within the EVEN, 10 to 98 range), then we know that alleged number 999-04-1234 is an invalid number because group number in the EVEN, 02 to 08 range have not yet been assigned. SSNs Used In Advertising (Making Them Invalid) Specific SSNs have been used in advertising over the years, which has rendered those numbers invalid. The most famous instance is that of the E. H. Ferree Company in Lockport, New York, which in 1938 decided to promote its product by showing how a Social Security card would fit into its wallets. Over time the number that appeared (078-05-1120) was claimed by over 40,000 people as their own. The SSA tells the whole story The Social Security Administration now recommends that people showing Social Security cards in advertisements use numbers in the range 987-65-4320 through 987-65-4329. According to one source the following SSNs have been used in ads:

002-28-1852	042-10-3580	062-36-0749	078-05-1120	095-07-3645
128-03-6045	135-01-6629	141-18-6941	165-16-7999	165-18-7999
165-20-7999	165-22-7999	165-24-7999	189-09-2294	212-09-7694
212-09-9999	306-30-2348	308-12-5070	468-28-8779	549-24-1889

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Locate Unclaimed Assets | Missing Money | Unclaimed Property

2011-10-12T22:19:00Z

Locate Unclaimed Assets | Missing Money | Unclaimed Property

If you’ve ever overpaid for something, closed an account and never received interest payment, were due a dividend but moved and the forwarding address expired and so on, you may have missing money or unclaimed assets somewhere.

Here is a short list of helpful links where you can search for or locate your unclaimed assets if any exist. There are services that will do a more comprehensive search but if you have time or enjoy the hunt this might be for you.

#1. The Government May Owe You Money
This web site offers a list of links where you can check unclaimed property, credit unions, mortgage refunds, and more. I’ve listed a few of the links on the site below as well as a few others, however, if you start here it covers most if not all Unclaimed Government Fund web sites.

#2. National Association of State Treasures
Select your state then look for unclaimed assets link in state controllers web site. If you can’t locate it, the easiest thing to do is use the search box typically located on the controller web site and search for “unclaimed”. You will typically get a list of documents, links or articles having to do with unclaimed assets. Click on the first few links to see if the unclaimed assets link is available. The Arizona link will take you to the Arizona Unclaimed Assets page. The California link will take you to California Unclaimed Assets page.

#3. U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Missing Income Tax Refund Claim
If you’re expecting a Tax refund from the IRS and it’s has been more than 28 days since you’re check was mailed (if you didn’t file electronically), you can file an online claim for a replacement check.

#4. FDIC Unclaimed Funds
If a financial institution is closed, by a regulatory agency, the FDIC is appointed as Receiver and is responsible for the payment of insured deposits and the liquidation of the remaining assets. If you did not claim your funds previously you now have another opportunity to do so.

#5. National Credit Union Administration Unclaimed Funds (NCUA)
When a credit union with federal insurance is liquidated, NCUA is responsible for paying the share accounts to the members. Unfortunately, some checks are never cashed or a credit union members address information was incomplete, missing or outdated.

#6. Unclaimed Saving Bonds – Treasury Hunt
Do you have savings bonds that have matured and stopped earning interest? If so, it’s time to cash them in, or reinvest them, and have your money start working for you again.

It’s important to check your savings bonds periodically to determine if they’re still earning interest, and if they’re not, they should be redeemed. Billions of dollars in savings bonds have stopped earning interest, but havenÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t been cashed. This database is updated monthly.

#7. U.S. Veteran Affairs Unclaimed Insurance Funds
Unclaimed insurance funds are owed to certain current and former policyholders or their beneficiaries. This money represents death awards, dividend checks and premium refunds that were mailed to policyholders. These payments were returned to VA by the Post Office because they could not be delivered. VA holds this money until we can locate the policyholder.

#8. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation Unclaimed Pensions (PBGC)
When a company’s pension plan is transferred to PBGC, the company is sometimes unable to locate people that participated in a specific plan and therefor unable to give them any benefits they may be owed. PBGC looks for them through the “Missing Participants” service.

Please note that the person should have participated in a “defined benefit” pension plan in a privately owned company that terminated and then transferred the plan to PBGC.

#9. National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrator (NAUPA)
The NAUPA is a non-profit organization. They are affiliated with the Council of State Governments and the National Association of State Treasurers. Members represent all states, the District of Columbia, and other international governmental entities. NAUPA provides a forum for protecting and returning property to rightful owners.

#10. Missing Money
Missing Money is operated by ACS Unclaimed Property Clearinghouse a Xerox company and is a national database. It was established in November 1999 by the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA). MissingMoney.com enables owners to perform comprehensive searches for lost assets required by law to be turned over to the states and provinces.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Noah Wieder is CEO of SearchBug, Inc. and the founder of Best People Search. SearchBug.com offers a Free People Finder and Company Search as well as Data Scrubbing Services. Bestpeoplesearch.com is a private investigator portal and Information Retrieval Services web site where investigators offer searches to businesses and individuals with specific search needs.

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How to Avoid Reverse Phone Lookup Scams

2011-10-12T22:48:53Z

How to Avoid Reverse Phone Lookup Scams

This is a follow up post to my blog about Know Your Data Broker where I talked about Tamara Thompson’s blog.

I conducted some simple research to show the differences between what’s available online regarding the various reverse phone lookup searches and will show three very different examples to include what bad web sites do to trick consumers and what a good web site should do to show they are trustworthy.

As usual, I will also include what SearchBug does and what makes us different (and better) and why SearchBug customers appreciate everything we do.

First test subject was found via a Google Advertisement. This company pays for traffic and has to use tricks to get customers. When I visited cellphonenumberlookups123 [dot] com it looks professional enough but has an annoying gentlemen telling me it’s a “premier” service. I’m sorry, he is annoying.

At first glance I want to see the contact us page. I expect to see a phone number, fax number and address for a legitimate company that wants me to enter payment information online. How can I trust a company that won’t even provide a mailing address or phone number.

The image below is a screen shot of the contact page I found on their web site. As you can see, no phone number or address anywhere. But they do say, that you can reach them via phone for help, however to get the phone number, I had to engage in a live chat session during business hours.

During my chat session I asked why the phone or address was not available on the web site. I was not provided with that answer. I was however given a phone number for customer service but was encourage to email them. No way to tell if I was dealing with someone at the company or if it was outsourced to a third party.

Now on to my test searches. I purposefully used an invalid phone number to see what web sites would tell me. Would they tell me it was invalid or offer any information, or just try to take my money?

Upon entering my fake phone number 555-234-5678 this web site shows a “processing” screen which took almost 20 seconds (a big waste of time for nothing, other than to make customers think they are really trying to find stuff). Remember, this is the age of computers, we can tell if the number is valid or invalid in split seconds. Here is the first of 4 screens I had to endure to get to the end.

Click on any image to enlarge it and read my comments on the screen shots

After this screen came the next screen in the series.

Here they try and convince me that they found
information for the bogus number I entered.

When I click that continue to next step button I get the screen below which tries to convince me they are searching for even more stuff for some reason.

Now comes the third sales page that tries to tell me
I can get the information I want for just $1.00

Here comes the checkout page,
the fine print is really scary.

It basically says for your $1.00
you get a 7 day trial to some type of service
and after 7 days you’ll be billed
$18.95 per month until you cancel.

Remember, this is all for a phone number I know is Bogus, and here they still try and tell you they found your information, want you to pay $1.00 for it and sign you up for an $18.95 monthly subscription.

That is what I call “wrong”. Caveat Emptor – Let the Buyer Beware

Next up – we have Reversephonedirectory [dot] com. These guys appear to be a landing page or reseller for Intelius because when you click thru pages you end up back on Intelius. Here you can clearly see they tell you there are 8 results in some premium database but they don’t give you any hint on the names.

Also, if the number is invalid, why don’t they tell you that? Seems that they don’t reveal that information. They do show you the cities and states, and as far as I know, a phone number can’t really be from several different states unless it was a cell phone and the owner moved and kept their number. But they don’t tell you if it’s a land line or a cell phone either?

Now we have Intelius and USSearch. Since Intelius now owns and operates USSearch, I would expect similar results from a company their size. The interesting thing here is that these guys have more computer engineers than any of the other people search web sites in the USA. Why they only tell you the number is invalid and nothing else amazes me.

At lease USSearch shows it big enough to see. Intelius is whispering the information like it’s a secret or something.

There are hundreds of other examples of similar web sites. The important thing to keep in mind is to make sure the web site is reputable, has their address and phone number clearly displayed on the web site and provides enough information for you to make an informed decision if you want to do business with them or not.

You know I saved the best for last. Here is the same number entered into the SearchBug system. Note that we tell you the number is Likely to be Invalid in big letters. We also tell you the reason (because 555 is a fictitious area code). We also tell you the line type, carrier and calling area are unknown (likely because the area code is fictitious).

So why would there be any names or addresses found in public records for a bogus phone number? Well, these are public records and as such get input from many resources. Even though the number is invalid, people evidently used the number on documents that end up in public domain and databases that are made available to the public and data brokers.

Keep in mind that because the phone number is fictitious the names and addresses could also be fictitious, however it’s impossible to check the information until the full records are purchased.

SearchBug tries to manage customer expectations, providing as much information as possible to let their customers make informed decisions.

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Identity Theft and SSN Randomization

2011-10-18T23:20:00Z

Identity Theft and SSN Randomization

SSN Randomization is a project by the SSA in an effort to curb Identity theft victims in the USA. The Social Security Administration (SSA) will change the way Social Security Numbers are issued starting on June 25, 2011.

Since 1973 SSN’s have been issued based on the Zip Code of the mailing address of the SSN application. The first three digits of the SSN were tied to a particular state. After June 25, 2011 this will no longer be the case making it a little more difficult for Identity thieves to guess or obtain the SSN of their victims.Starting on June 25, 2011, the SSA will eliminate the geographical significance of the first three digits of the SSN, currently referred to as the area number, by no longer allocating the area numbers for assignment to individuals in specific states.

The project is an effort to help protect the integrity of the SSN by establishing a new randomized assignment methodology. SSN Randomization will also extend the longevity of the nine-digit SSN nationwide.

The downside to this randomization is that employers, collection agents, financial institutions and many other industries that rely on being able to conduct SSN verification using various third party services may find themselves paying up to 10x more for similar services.

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Know Your Data Broker

2011-11-16T18:52:59Z

Know Your Data Broker

Much like the banking industry has procedure called “KYC” which stands for Know Your Customer – consumers, investigators and other users of data brokers should adopt a “KYDB” or Know Your Data Broker.

Tamara Thompson of PiBuzz.com really sums this up well. Her article includes a lot of information that has caused this industry to get a black eye. Just look at my blog about reverse phone lookup scams to see the details.

We all know when it’s too good to be true it probably is however, when Tamara discusses criminal records I have to shed light on the fact that there really is no single repository for Criminal Records and not every county court reports the same criminal activity. We’ve also noticed that there are often disparities in what consumers think is in criminal records and what certain counties, states or federal criminal records include.

I also see a lot of disclaimers on instant criminal records and even we include a disclaimer, if only to manage consumer expectations since it’s not possible to guarantee third party information (especially from the government). The only way to truly see what is included in a criminal record is know the county or the court where the conviction took place and to obtain copies of the actual case.

I want to also point out that some records are sealed, some counties and records only include convictions not arrests and if a case is still pending or the courts are behind at closing files it could take months or longer before some records are included in online access. SearchBug offers verified business users access to the most comprehensive system of criminal records I’ve found and that is via RapSheets.

Free or fee. I agree with Tamara on most of this in her article, however, there is one thing I noticed about free information and even sometimes with paid information from the wrong source. Basically you get what you pay for. So if you are looking for free information or free public records be prepared to spend some time hunting down what’s needed and then you may need to double check it. Published records are different from public records which can be different than “current” records.

It boils down to this: If you’re just looking for an address or a phone number to conduct some marketing service or find a lost friend or family member the free searches may be fine. However, if you’re trying to collect on a debt or conduct process service and you’re sending a process server or sheriff to an address you found, you should make absolutely sure it’s a verified current address.

There are only a few ways to make 100% sure an address or phone number you have is current for your subject. To verify correct current address, you can mail a certified letter with address service requested (about $5 and change) and wait a month for the receipt or the correction service to come back, or you can hire a professional to conduct a real skip trace or a verified locate.

Obviously, I’m a bit partial to our People Search USA and we’re upfront about what it includes in our effort to manage our customers expectations. We include all published records free and then we offer a premium service that shows what is available before customers have to make a decision to purchase. This is the key to knowing your data broker. When you conduct a search for an address or phone the web site should show you that some information was found.

Another way to test the service is to type in a phone number you know is invalid. If the service tells you that information is available even if the number is invalid, that’s a sign to stay clear.

We include a sample report, tell you How to Search, what your Results will typically include, provide information sources and the cost of each search before you even get started. Our toll free phone number is clearly displayed on all our web pages and you can reach our customer service for help selecting the best search for your needs while keeping cost down and getting the right type of data.

See my next blog for a detailed report on how to spot a reverse phone lookup scam.

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SearchBug - People Search Blog - Get advice about people search, hiring private investigators, and public records research.

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