Politics
Jack Latvala, CFO Atwater Battle over Sale of Social Security Numbers
Around the State
Sen. Jack Latvala
And state Sen. Jack Latvala wants to keep it that way.
Currently, the state Department of Financial Services has a database of Social Security numbers it receives from holders of unclaimed property where the rightful owner cannot be located, such as abandoned safe deposit boxes or uncollected utility security deposits.
For a $35 monthly fee, licensed private investigators can access the database, ostensibly for the purpose of tracking down owners of unclaimed property.
Certified public accountants and lawyers are the only other groups allowed access to the DFS database.
But state officials say only a small fraction of the registered users have actually sought out owners of unclaimed property. And DFS says Floridians are outraged over the dissemination of their Social Security numbers by those who have access.
"This presents a world of risk," said Ashley Mayer of the DFS.
The Social Security "loophole" is a vestige from the days before computer search engines and sophisticated tracking software became widely available.
Two bills -- Senate Bill 1208 and House Bill 7111 -- would stop the distribution of Social Security numbers by the state.
But Latvala, R-St. Petersburg, wants Florida to continue furnishing individuals' Social Security numbers for the purposes of locating owners of unclaimed property and refunds.
"Companies in my district will be put out of business. People could miss out on property," he said.
So Latvala is proposing an amendment that would require the state to issue at least partial Social Security numbers.
But Mayer said such a compromise leaves the door open for identity and financial fraud. She said available software enables identities to be determined with the first five numbers or the last four numbers -- two suggestions made by Latvala.
Mayer disputed Latvala's assertions. Of 178 locator agencies registered by DFS, she said only 58 had filed for unclaimed property.
Mayer did not speculate why the other 120 agencies would want to maintain access to Floridians' Social Security numbers -- or what they do with those numbers.
She did, however, cite several examples where locator services had sent multiple Social Security numbers to third parties, a practice that raised obvious privacy concerns at the Senate Committee on Government Oversight and Accountability.
The DFS' Bureau of Unclaimed Property says it receives many consumer complaints about the distribution of their private Social Security Information.
Citing locator letters divulging multiple Social Security numbers to third parties, the department notes, "Florida courts have found that individuals possess a legitimate expectation in the privacy of their Social Security numbers."
In one case, DFS said James A. Garner, of Reno, Nev., "by having access to account amounts and/or SSNs contained on the [Bureau of Unclaimed Property] database, was able to create and submit fraudulent documents, including photographic identification, Social Security cards, wage statements (pay stubs) and bank statements.
"Through his filing of fraudulent claims, Garner obtained more than $76,000 from BUP and more than $213,000 from other states’ unclaimed property programs."
Raising another concern, Jay McGathey, of Trinity, thanked the DFS for a tax refund he received from the agency, and excoriated locator services that fail to disclose that private individuals can recover funds on their own without employing outside services.
"Since I have applied for my refund I have been sent correspondence by a law firm and an accounting firm. Both tried to make me believe that I could only receive my refund if I utilized their services for a fee," McGathey related.
"I feel these firms are unethical and should be prevented from misleading claimants. ... I will provide you with the correspondence at your request if it will help to stop these unethical bastards."
In a statement, DFS said, "Because Social Security numbers no longer add value to the search process, and because of the great risk to consumers, state Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater has proposed safeguarding Social Security numbers from disclosure.
"Providing Social Security numbers to registered claimant representatives/locators is not the least intrusive means to accomplish the objective of identifying owners and claimants of unclaimed property."
Atwater's proposed reforms -- embodied in SB 1208 and HB 7111 -- were bottled up by Latvala in committee last week. The senator repeatedly challenged Mayer to provide examples of "prosecution" of locators for improperly handling or disseminating Social Security numbers.
Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, buttressed Latvala's objections by noting that the numbers are "already out," thanks to the regularly issued CD updates distributed to registered users by the DFS over the past decade.
But another Democrat, Bill Montford of Marianna, repeatedly expressed amazement that the state would be party to the distribution of Social Security information.
Saying it's time to pull the plug, Atwater calls SB 1208 a "top priority."
"He believes strongly in the protection of people's confidential information -- especially their Social Security numbers," a DFS spokeswoman said.
In the absence of committee Chairman Garrett Richter, R-Naples, the Senate panel temporarily postponed action on the committee bill. The committee reconvenes on Friday.
Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
Comments (14)
I am one of the locators who has not filed a claim (well, I just filed my first). The reason? Because the BUP is the most difficult group of individuals I've ever dealt with. If I had my way, all of them would be fired... on the spot.
As of today, I'm done trying to support my family and help other families by trying to track down money the state is "holding". One less professional that the BUP has to deal with (congrats).
My guess... someone has a "buddy" who wants to privatize the whole bureau. For a BIG price too, I'm sure.
Good luck with that!
Becoming a Private Investigator in the State of Florida is a lengthy process. We have to undergo Location checks, Background checks, Fingerprinting and periodic spot checks. Having done this for over 8 years, and having gone thru the process, I promise you it is not an easy task.
It just so happens the reason that Private Investigators are responding is, this is one method we utilize to earn an income to provide for our families. We provide a valuable service to the public as we are trusted by the state with certain informations. As stated below, having a persons SSN is not the problem, what you do with it is what causes the issue. Don't judge another until you understand the full picture of what is happening. That would be like a Lawn Maintenace person maintaining lawns without gas for a lawn mower.....The gas could be used to burn a house.....so lets ban all use of gasoline for lawn cutting services.....
I am a private investigator, licensed by the State of Florida, to locate heirs of estates and owners of unclaimed assets. A decedent’s social security number is important for identification/proof of ownership and becomes public record upon death. In many instances, without the ability to verify the deceased owner’s social security number, it would not be possible to prove ownership.
It has been suggested that a person’s birth date can be determined from the various digits of the social security number; however, several sources describe various changes in the numbering system in about 1965 and 1972 so that this is not a reliable method of determining one’s birth date. Not to mention the fact that an individual’s birth date can vary on records over the course of many years. The Social Security Number is a constant.
It would seem that the better idea would be for the State and investigative industry to work together to put into place safeguards to address these concerns rather than to restrict the industry from access to the information thereby hindering their ability to provide this service to the citizens of the state.
I don't care who you are or for what reason you have no "right" to a social security number, even if the individual is dead. Banks did not have a right to them until they paid interest on checking accounts and savings accounts.
You can refuse to give it to anyone at anytime.
The issue that has yet to surface is that holders of unclaimed property who turn funds over the the Department of Financial Services frequently fail to accurately report account owner information. Names and addresses are mispelled or missing all together. Access to information has made it possible for claimant's representative to demonstrate a perponderance of evidence to prove entitlement.
Claimant's representative have agreed that a partial social is adequate in most instance to make a connection to prove ownership of unclaimed property.
The Internal Revenue Service records tax liens in the public record accrss the US which include a partial social in order to avoid application of the lien against someone with the same name.
There is over $600 millions held by Florida Bureau of Unclaimed property the that were reported with a name only!!!
Many of the abandoned bank accounts were abandoned by the owner dying. When he/she died he/she left no estate or will to direct where that money should go. Would the writer of this article wish the money to stay in the state coffers forever or would this write want some one who is a member of the family to get this money?
By the way the SS# is used for locating lost family members of MIA's from Vietnam and Korea.
We did not invent the SS#; Mr. Roosevelt's administration tossed this on us but now it is our cross to bear.
Those people are called Private Investigators.....Most of us take the basic information given, cross reference to the SSN, and then utilize that for the remaining information. Restricting this information to those that utilize it as a productive tool would be greatly hindered if this information was restricted. As stated before, it would be as if the State were stating....We trust you.....but not really. Ever been in a Lawsuit or a case where you needed a Private Investigator? If you have, you know the value of our services and exactly the benefit and the edge we can provide. You as a customer would want us to have all the tools and information necessary in order to perform our jobs at the most accurate and expert level possible, wouldn't you?
First and foremost, the State of Florida is a state that believes in government in the sunshine and returning property back to rightful owners – the citizens of the State of Florida. Florida is the 2nd most successful program in the nation in locating heirs and returning property. Florida locators want to improve on their public-private partnership with DFS and we want to maintain the ability to work successfully in returning unclaimed property to rightful owners.
One of the main reasons the other states do not release social security numbers to locators is they use their programs as a revenue-generating program. Without access to a partial social security number, our industry would virtually be shut down and the money would not otherwise get back to the rightful owners. The professional locators have many documented cases of where they returned property to rightful owners that the State of Florida did not return and would have never returned the property. The registered Florida locators returned more than 25% of the property returned last year. I do not believe the State of Florida wants to confiscate people’s money. DFS (CFO Jeff Atwater) should agree to the compromise language of Senator Latvala amendment to SB 1208. I believe it is in the best interest of the citizens of the State of Florida that DFS work with the professional registered locators in a positive manner.
Thank you.
Harry B. Carson
I can tell you that everyone of my clients feels more comfortable with me having access to their number than with a unlicensed, unregulated, temporary Department employee having their SSN.
The reason that there are registered companies that order the encrypted CD, then don't file a claim, is that they realize that this endeavor is too hard or they can't open the CD at all. There is NO evidence of any illegal activity of by the licensed companies that are registered with the State.
Restricting this industry further is a step in the wrong direction. Not all, but many companies would close, jobs would be lost and Florida's citizens would lose the millions of dollars that would have been returned to them.
It is unfortunate that Kenric Ward did not make an effort to contact the industry before submitting this article.
First, I want to address your misunderstanding of our industry. That is, the professional licensed private investigators, licensed CPAs and licensed attorneys (all licensed by the State of Florida) who spend time locating the owners of unclaimed assets. We work to locate the owners of many accounts where the State mailed out letters to people who had been dead for many years, or to people who are no longer living at the address the letter was sent (that is the reason the money has gone unclaimed anyway, isn’t it?). We are successful in having at least 20% of the claims processed by the State paid to the rightful owners, not to mention those who are informed of the money by our letters and move forward to collect it on their own.
The State does “sell” access to their database, along with a disc that is mailed out to the locators who pay a fee each time they request one, not monthly. Most active locators do request a disc monthly. I would assume that the State doesn’t make any money off of this, and would instead use the money to cover expenses of database management, disc creation, and even tracking the usage of information by the registered locators.
While there are 170 plus registered locators, the State didn’t tell you that NOT ALL OF THEM “buy social security numbers.” Our own attorney was forced by the State to register as a locator on a case where we represented the heirs, and has never purchased a disc, nor has she even logged in to their website. Many others spend the time to register and then realize just how hard our job is, and never purchase another disc. They are still listed on the list you referenced that includes the 170 plus locators that were mentioned in your article. We requested the number of disks purchased in 2011, but were told that they didn’t have that information as of last Friday.
Social security numbers are critical to the locators to identify the correct owner. Take a recent case my firm worked on. We will call the account owner Mrs. X to protect her identity. Mrs. X died in 1983. There was no record of her at the address that was listed as part of the identifying information. She didn’t have Spokeo or Facebook, as the State might want you to believe. Without her social security number, the three children may have never even known that there was over $300,000 due to her estate, and ultimately to them without a locator having access to her social security number. How about my husband, who shares the same name as his father? They once resided at the same address. How would a locator be able to determine who the correct owner of the account is?
And don’t let the State fool you, the documentation they have been spreading around is in part, propaganda. When a person dies, their information, including their social security number, is public record, according to the Freedom of Information Act. A death certificate is public record in the State of Florida, and anyone can have access to it. That includes the social security number listed on the top of the death certificate.
The accounts do not supply as much information as the State claims. Recent statistical analyses of accounts over $1000 available on the December 2011 disc shows that there are slightly less than 286,000 accounts that total over $1.3 billion. Of those, only 6% actually contain the date of birth, another key in identifying the correct owner. 27% of the accounts do not contain addresses. It would be nearly impossible to locate the owners of these assets without the social security number. This means these owners would never know the asset exists, and therefore would never get paid their own money.
Maybe the State should spend some time cleaning up their list of registered locators and remove access to the database of the other 120 or so that do not aid in the collection of unclaimed monies, instead of removing a key piece of identifying information used to put money back into the hands of Floridians. How is that for bias?
Granted, there are some people that will utilize this information inappropriately, do not punish an entire industry based upon the actions of a few. I challenge you to go to ANY industry in a free trade market and not find people that are trying to cheat or circumvent the system. As an example....car dealers. There are some that will tell or do anything to sell a car. If one person sells a car that is less than what is expected, are we supposed to shut down all the car lots across the country, or are we supposed to address the issue of the one fraudulent car lot? I think the latter is the best answer.
I personally have had people cry in relief about the stresses and financial issues they have been able to alleviate due to this money being found and recovered. Without this information, our hands are dramatically tied with the efficiency and effectiveness about how we can do our jobs.
Lastly, having a SSN of another person is not illegal. What a person does with that SSN is the determining factor. The SSN was never meant to be used as it is today. It was simply to identify money going into a SS Account for SS money later in life. It was never meant to be used as a credit account or other identifiers.
Case in point....any person can go to a county recording office and find SSN's of people that are out there. This is "Joe Public" that can do this. We as PI's have to undergo background checks and worthyness checks to determine our "Honor". Don't give us this ability on one hand, and then take it away on another. This will be doing the industry as well as the Citizens that are owed this money a great dis service.
End Rant
Dale D. Graham
The Graham Group, LLC
A2400037
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