Stolen Social Security Number

An article in the New York Times discusses how insecure your social security number is. That's no surprise, especially when states, even now send out letters with your number on the exterior of the envelope.

For my part, I've long resented the use of my number by colleges and others as a identification number. It was never intended for that use and too many institutions liked to automatically use it rather then assign their own number.

Anyway, in the NY Times article is reference to a website called stolenidsearch.com that will check your social security number to see if it is in a database of compromised numbers. You might want to check yours.

The website is trying to sell their service and it brought up another pet peeve I have. I've found websites now try to get you into the sign-up process before they reveal the cost. They must figure once you start you are likely to continue to sign-up regardless of cost. I resent that too. I'm pretty resentful aren't I?

Frankly, I think stolenID search is way too pricey at $49 (after a $20 discount). There are other ways to monitor your financial privacy.