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SSN FAQs (Updated)

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Lina Maini

ssn

 

One of the most common initial searches we conduct on almost each matter is the verification of a Social Security Number’s owner.  The below FAQs provide a basic grounding in how the SSA administers SSNs.  (There actually is a logical structure in place!)

SSN FAQs:  

  • Do I have to get an SSN? 
  • The IRS declares US Citizens who receive income are required to have an SSN and employers are required to report income to the IRS using this SSN.
  • Can I give up (renounce) my number?
  • The SSA does not  recognize any procedure for renouncing your SSN.  The one exception is that a parent who can show that a number was assigned to their child without the parent’s consent and that parent can get the number removed from the SSA’s records.
  • Can I get a new number?
  • Someone is offering to get me a new SSN; is this legal?
  • The SSA does not have a specific set policies about issuing new SSNs.  They will only rarely issue a new SSN to someone who has a significant problem with a stalker or identity theft. In either case, the local SSA office must be convinced that you have tried all reasonable avenues for handling these problems, and the problem continues to reappear because someone is tracking you through your SSN, or because the identity thief continues to create new false credit reports via misuse of your SSN.  The SSA has a new publication on what to do When Someone Misuses Your Number discussing Identity Theft in general terms. It says If you can prove that you’re being disadvantaged because someone used your Social Security number, visit your local Social Security office to request a new one. If you’ve done all you can to fix the problem and someone is still using your number, under certain circumstances, the SSA may assign you a new number.  They do recommend that you file a report with both Social Security Fraud Hotline at 1-800-269-0271 and the FTC.

THIS DATA IS STRICTLY FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES

 
001-003 New Hampshire
004-007 Maine
008-009 Vermont
010-034 Massachusetts
035-039 Rhode Island
040-049 Connecticut
050-134 New York
135-158 New Jersey
159-211 Pennsylvania
212-220 Maryland
221-222 Delaware
223-231 Virginia
691-699*
232-236 West Virginia
232 North Carolina
237-246
681-690
247-251 South Carolina
654-658
252-260 Georgia
667-675
261-267 Florida
589-595
766-772
268-302 Ohio
303-317 Indiana
318-361 Illinois
362-386 Michigan
387-399 Wisconsin
400-407 Kentucky
408-415 Tennessee
756-763*
416-424 Alabama
425-428 Mississippi
587-588
752-755*
429-432 Arkansas
676-679
433-439 Louisiana
659-665
440-448 Oklahoma
449-467 Texas
627-645
468-477 Minnesota
478-485 Iowa
486-500 Missouri
501-502 North Dakota
503-504 South Dakota
505-508 Nebraska
509-515 Kansas
516-517 Montana
518-519 Idaho
520 Wyoming
521-524 Colorado
650-653
525,585 New Mexico
648-649
526-527 Arizona
600-601
764-765
528-529 Utah
646-647
530 Nevada
680
531-539 Washington
540-544 Oregon
545-573 California
602-626
574 Alaska
575-576 Hawaii
750-751*
577-579 District of Columbia
580 Virgin Islands
580-584 Puerto Rico
596-599
586 Guam
586 American Samoa
586 Philippine Islands
700-728 Railroad Board**
729-733 Enumeration at Entry

Notes:

1. The same area, when shown more than once, means that certain numbers have been transferred from one State to another, or that an area has been divided for use among certain geographic locations.

2.  Any number beginning with 000 will NEVER be a valid SSN.

3.Blanks indicate new designations not yet assigned.

4.700-728 Issuance of these numbers to railroad employees was discontinued July 1, 1963.

 

Our Operatives: Street smart; info savvy.

As always, be safe.

Filed under: General Information, Social Security Information | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Top 10 Apps 2013 (1st Q)

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Lina Maini

heytell

As the title announces (that they are all free is entirely coincidental):

1. Mailbox: Quickly swipe messages to your archive or trash. Scan an entire conversation at once with chat-like organization. Snooze emails until later with the tap of a button.

2. Ringya:  Just snap a picture or email contact lists to Ringya and they’re transformed into smart, organized, searchable Rings.  For Work: Tired of manually updating your address book every time there’s a new hire or coworkers change contact info?  With Ringya, one person uploads and shares the list and everyone gets the team “Ring” on their phone.  When anyone updates the list, everybody gets the changes.

3. Unroll Me:   Life is busy. Your inbox shouldn’t be…  Your inbox is a mess, and it’s time to admit defeat. Stop sorting through your emails, and start doing things you love again.

4. Gasbuddy: Find gas stations in your area. Can search by location or best price.

5. Redlaser: Scans the barcode on a product and finds it for less (or more) at nearby stores or online.  (Redlaser recently formed a partnership with AmEx to offer consumers on-the-fly comparison shopping options.)

6. Pocket: Saves online content from your laptop, tablet or smartphone and view it later – offline.

7. Key Ring:  Lose the paperweigh feel of your keyring with its numerous attached store barcode tags.  Use this app to scan & store your existing keyring loyalty cards, enroll in new loyalty programs, and access exclusive coupons and discounts.

8. Decide:  Your personal shopping advisor that advises you to buy or wait based on proprietary price and model predictions. Price guaranty: Decide delivers the best price and advice on when to buy or they pay the difference.

9. SnapGuide: A free iOS app and web service of step-by-step “how to guides.”  SnapGuide offers a rich library for a wide array of topics with easy to understand instructions.

10.  HeyTell: Turns your smartphone into a walkie-talkie. Great for conferences in large venues, sporting events or even in the office.

Our Operatives: Street smart, info savvy.

As always, stay safe.

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Lina Maini on blogtalkradio

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Lina Maini

Cyber Security.  This week we  experienced one of the largest cyber attacks the world had publicly seen, slowing down internet speeds to a crawl for hundreds of millions worldwide. How would a massive scale cyber terrorist assault affect our mass transit systems, schools, nuclear stations…?

Join us live Saturday evening at 7 PM EST on blogtalkradio, with government and corporate cyber security and investigations expert, Lina Maini, government defense expert, Wilburn Hancock, IT, and our host, Christian Swann, as we discuss global cyber security and threats.

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Can’t Find Your Client? Witness? or the Defect?? 5 Proactive Steps

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Lina Maini

lost and found

Every attorney has his/her own intake survey (generally varying by incident type) and method of working a case.  Below are several situations that our investigators have experienced in the field, and recommendations based on these incidents.  We hope these observations serve a proactive purpose in keeping a case in check.

1. Your client’s emergency contacts.

Situation: On numerous occasions we’ve had to locate a client that has moved without notifying his/her attorney.

Recommendation:  Obtain the complete contact information of at least 2 relatives and 2 friends NOT living with the client.  (Drilling deeper,  obtain the DOBs of the emergency contacts.  This may appear to be a rather aggressive suggestion but,  at least 2 of these 4 contacts should be within the 25 – 45 years old range.  Obtain an email address as these are often traceable. )

 

2.  The witnesses.

Situation: I’m sure you’ve all seen a PAR w/a witness listed as “Johnny, 917-555-1234″. (or same, similarly incomplete police report).   No address, no surname and a cell phone that may or may not be active in 2 weeks, let alone 2 years.

Recommendation(s):  1. Call “Johnny” immediately.  Obviously,  the first objective is to determine his knowledge of events regarding your client’s matter.  2. Obtain his contact information and an identifier.  (Again we suggest DOB.  Many people are reluctant to release their SSN.)  3. Obtain an emergency contact for him.   4.  Check the contact info every 6  months until the case is resolved.

 

3. Professional photographs of the accident scene, especially if citing defect or disrepair. 

Situation:   Several years ago, we had an exterior premises  trip and fall situation wherein we were called to investigate the scene approximately 4 months post-incident.  The injured person made several natural and unintentional mistakes: 1. Not realizing the extent of his injuries, he did not call 911.  There were no on-site witnesses and no responder witnesses, and  2. When he returned a week or so later, after receiving medical attention, he’d taken photos of the accident scene but the shots contained shadows running across the defect rendering it difficult to determine the exact nature and severity of the  defect.   He was to go back and re-shoot the scene but did not.  4 months later, no defect, no repair record.  The homeowner, of course, knew nothing.  Good luck with an area canvass among neighbors.

Recommendation: Send out a professional to photograph the accident scene ASAP.  Don’t expect the client to return and accurately record the scene.  Bear in mind, however, that the defect may have permanently “disappeared” and there may not always be a repair record.

From our good friend, http://www.stus.com:

 car accident

4.  If it seems weird; it probably is.  Check all possible contributory factors.

Situation:  Claimant fell UP the stairs.  She wasn’t carrying bags, wore flat shoes; no drugs or alcohol were involved.  No defects, liquids or debris on the ground.

Recommendation: Measure everything.  After taking detailed step and rail measurements, we realized that a) the steps were unequally sized – from the height between them to the protruding lip of each step (which was excessive at the point where she was caused to trip and b) the rail would have been out of reach from her position regardless, with no secondary wall rail in place.   Rarely do people slip, trip or fall for no reason (unless there is an underlying medical condition.)

 

5. Always check to see if drugs and alcohol were involved. (Defense)

Situation:  Building maintenance crew member claims to have fallen off of a defective ladder.  The ACR showed extremely high bp readings; 3 taken at 15 minute intervals by responding EMS.   Beyond what would be expected even in a stressful situation.

Recommendation: Check the medical history.  The individual was on Lipitor and had not taken his medication as prescribed for several days preceding his fall.  (He’d also commented to several co-workers earlier on the day of incident that he was feeling “dizzy”.)  There was absolutely nothing wrong with the ladder, the area surrounding it, nor was he working at a height requiring specialized safety equipment.

Our Operatives: Investigative minds at work.

As always, stay safe.

Filed under: accident, General Information, locate, slip and fall, witness | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Emergency Numbers Around The World and Safest Seats On Various Means of Travel

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Lina Maini

The safest seat on a:

Railroad Passenger Train:  Is any one outside of the train.  Seriously, a car or two ahead of the rear car.  According to the U.S. government’s transportation accident review authority, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), a  majority  of passenger rail mishaps damage the front cars; secondly, the middle in derailment situations; with the least damage occurring to the near to end cars.  Of course, in the case of a front to rear collision between two trains, the first train will suffer rear car damage, obviously, the first car(s) of the second train will suffer the most damage but these are the rarest collision types.  Final tip: choose a rear facing seat (in the direction of travel).  In a crash, you won’t be thrown forward.

Airplane:  A recently published Popular Mechanics study concludes that, in an airplane crash, 69% of rear cabin passengers are more likely to survive than those in the front rows (generally the first and business classes or in all-coach flights, the first 15 rows).  In the same situation, over the wing seat passengers experience a 59% survival rate, which then drops dramatically to 49% for those in the aforementioned front rows.

The safest cabin on a:

Cruise Ship:  From the Cruise Critic, mid to upper cabin, facing outward, in the ship’s aft (rear) section.  Cruise line accidents, while extremely rare, tend to damage the hull (usually in the  front part) first, thereby exposing the lower and inner cabins to immediate flooding as well as by positioning alone, these cabins have more restricted avenues of escape.  Overall, we recommend staying away from any cruises along the Somalian coast, regardless of cabin choice.

Enjoy your vacation.  According to Rebirth of Reason, staying at home is not an option.

The most recent statistics from the National Safety Council show that death by falling from a bed, chair or other furniture is almost as likely as death by air transport.  As of 2012, your odds of dying from an in-home fall are about 1 in 379,000 while your risk in an airplane is about 1 in 484,000.  You are safer hurtling through the air at 530 mph in a  metal container than you are standing on a chair in your own home reaching for a can of tuna.

Our Operatives: Street (air & sea) Smart: Info Savvy.

As always, and especially when traveling, stay safe.

Filed under: General Information | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Successful Locates v. Diminished Settlements

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Lina Maini

pushPinMap

To conduct a successful locate, hire a good investigator.

As flippant and self-serving as that may appear, if you’ve tried the usual public search options and have come up negative, if might be time to hire a professional detective.   The information online appears to be uniform.  It’s not.  A good investigator will use multiple data sources to locate a subject.  The key to selecting the most valuable  and current data  available along the digital trail is  in

1.  knowing the information providers update schedules (every 30 days, quarterly, when an important change is collected?).

2. understanding  the sales configuration of their products v. one’s needs. (E.g. Is a local versus a national real property search required? Does the service  allow for varying levels of information depth?)

3. confirming their level of removal from the primary data source.  (Is the data provider obtaining the information directly from officially recorded materials or repurposing another provider’s data?)

Your investigator should be aware of and constantly renewing his/her baseline  ”Go To” information sources.

For a subject locate,( to more efficiently utilize an investigator’s services), prepare the following on the subject:

1. Full name (to include maiden, extensions, e.g. Jr.  or III)

2. Date of birth, if known (or approximate age)

3. Social Security Number, if known

4. Last known home, cell and work phone numbers

5. Last known address or employers’ address

6. Work information, career field

7. Prior military experience

8. Relatives, emergency contacts

Perhaps, having had all of the above information available on your subject, you think there is nothing new an investigator can uncover.  Quite often, a different approach and skill set will make all of the difference between a successful locate and having to settle a case for a fraction of its worth.

Investigator Tip:

Often it is necessary, for completely legitimate reasons, to  initialize “soft” contact with a subject.  In that case, we suggest an untraceable, disposable, anonymous  email tool:  Guerrilla Mail.

Our Operatives: Street smart: info savvy.

As always, stay safe.

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Subtle Changes in Your Public Profile Can Have Big Consequences…

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Lina Maini

In positive ways.

By the time spring rolls around, the bad weather is over and a feeling of rejuvenation is in the air.  Your business needs that same dusting off and subsequent fresh polish.

Below are steps (with the appropriate tools, if necessary), that you can take at a leisurely pace in the next 6 weeks, that will give your business a new shine:

1. Twitter.  If your firm’s site maintains an active Twitter account, have it tied to a automatic RSS feed.  The benefits are that the site updates itself regarding important industry news, decisions… and keeps your site (and by extension, firm)  looking topical and engaged.

2. Review past blog posts.  Remove or modify old posts that are now either irrelevant, wrong or simply don’t  reflect the areas you are now practicing in.  (Also, once these posts are modified, submit the new posts to The Wayback Machine which will automatically update your old posts.  I’ve found things in my old posts that mortified me now… even though they’d been posted in jest at the time.)

3. Facebook:  Remove the scantily clad, robo-selling “friends” on there.  Mixing the professional with the personal is a talent few possess but cases of outright solicitation or ignorant postings, allowing these “friends”  devalues your public profile.

4. LinkedIn: Put your most powerful bio up.  Join groups that interest you and even one response a week will keep you tied into the community and potential sources of revenue.  Have your blog and Twitter posts also activated to appear on your LI page.  Again, it gives your sites and business a sense of freshness and of being knowledgeable.

Now just in case you have several people (former clients, friends…) that you would rather not show up anywhere on your public online profile, download  BlockYourEx software.  It’s as it they never existed :)

These small steps will have your sites appear fresh, current and relevant; always attractive selling points to a potential new client.

Our operatives: Street smart; info savvy.

As always, stay safe.

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Hurrican Sandy Update

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Lina Maini

Image

Thank you for your support and understanding, readers, as we continue our recovery and that of our neighbors, post-Sandy.  We hope and trust that likewise, if you have been affected by Hurricane Sandy, that you are well on your way to a full restoration of services. 

We remained completely active and fully manned during this devastating storm, and continue to be available to fulfill all of your investigative and informational needs.

If there are any special requirements your office may have (document delivery, security, expedited services- for which there is no extra fee from now until Nov. 30th), please let us know.  Feel welcome to call our 24/7 field supervisor’s number: 347-443-1737 at any time.

(The 800 # on the FEMA graphic is current and active.)

Stay safe.

Filed under: General Information | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Shout Out To Our Contributor, Suzanne Reisig Olden!!

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Lina Maini

Image

Suzanne is now also writing for the uniquely and hotly opinionated www.clashdaily.com:

http://clashdaily.com/2012/07/have-a-conscience-who-cares/

 

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Independence Day: History and Interesting Facts

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Lina Maini

happy fourth

Brief History and Fun Facts of Independence Day, U.S.A.:

During the American Revolution, the legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain occurred on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence that had been proposed in June by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia declaring the United States independent from Great Britain.

After voting for independence, Congress turned its attention to the Declaration of Independence, a statement explaining this decision, which had been prepared by a Committee of Five, with Thomas Jefferson as its principal author. Congress debated and revised the wording of the Declaration, finally approving it on July 4. A day earlier, John Adams had written to his wife Abigail:

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

Adams’s prediction was off by two days. From the outset, Americans celebrated independence on July 4, the date shown on the much-publicized Declaration of Independence, rather than on July 2, the date the resolution of independence was approved in a closed session of Congress.[

Historians have long disputed whether Congress actually signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, even though Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin all later wrote that they had signed it on that day. Most historians have concluded that the Declaration was signed nearly a month after its adoption, on August 2, 1776, and not on July 4 as is commonly believed.

In a remarkable coincidence, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the only signers of the Declaration of Independence later to serve as Presidents of the United States, died on the same day: July 4, 1826, which was the 50th anniversary of the Declaration. Although not a signer of the Declaration of Independence, but another Founding Father who became a President, James Monroe, died on July 4, 1831, thus becoming the third president in a row who died on this memorable day. Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President, was born on July 4, 1872, and, so far, is the only President to have been born on Independence Day.  — from wikipedia.

Take a moment this 4th of July to ponder the risks our Founding Fathers and all patriots past and present have taken to ensure our liberty.  Carry those thoughts with you this November when we decide which candidate for President of the United States of America best represents those characteristics that this nation requires to maintain its

As always, stay safe.

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