A good many years ago I got a letter from the Internal Revenue Service telling me that I had made a math error on my income tax return and that I owed more money. That seemed odd to me, since I was using commercial income tax software to do the return and usually those programs are pretty good at arithmetic.
After some research comparing my numbers to the IRS numbers, I found the problem. They had made a typographical error keying or scanning my return, putting a “0” where I had a “9”.
Do you know what happens if you make that mistake when typing a Hawaiian zip code? It comes out Connecticut.
“Do you know what happens if you make that mistake when typing a Hawaiian zip code? It comes out Connecticut.”
Soros is paying you to say that.
Hey… yer goood!
I birther just today told me to take my Soros money and get lost. I told him I didn’t know I was supposed to be paid so I Emailed George Soros and he said he didn’t know what I was talking about. I ended by asking: So do I get the check from you?…..or how does this work?
A typo – that explains it. Mystery solved.
In addition, government already responded to Orly’s FOIA requests – unfortunately a clerk made a typo and mail was sent to a wrong address – six times in a row, LOL!
“A typo – that explains it. Mystery solved.
Racist Birther Idiot.
Oh, no typo there. The problem is some people aren’t smart enough to know what records you can get under FOIA..
There is no mystery, so nothing to solve. The President’s SSN is quite legitimate. If you wish, you can call 1-877-IDTHEFT (1-877-438-4338) to report the fraudulent use of the number by various scammers.
And yes typos happen all the time. My first passport listed me as 6 years older than I am, because the clerk misread a “7” as a “1”. I returned it and got a corrected one issued on an expedited basis.
I’ve seen worse – I once got issued a passport stating my eye colour as “blue” when it had been stated as “brown” my entire life.
According to birthers, that proves there’s something terribly wrong with me, my identity and my history. (And I probably committed fraud and treason by not immediately having this error corrected, because I considered it so funny I only notified the clerk “don’t do this again” when I applied for renewal.)
In the paranoid, delusional pea brain of a birther, the answer is ALWAYS the most complicated or far fetched or nefarious.
They are mentally ill.
Remember the racist birther idiot’s stance is that the mystery lies in what is deliberately being hidden from her. It’s a pretty weak attempt at FUD but exemplifies the true motivation of birther scum.
That’s an interesting discovery. I wonder how many other “gotchas” from birthistan have just been simple mistakes that went uncaught.
In a study last year at Vanderbilt University, experienced touch typists who were able to type at least 40 WPM were tested by having them type a paragraph about border collies. The overall accuracy rate was just 90%.
Typographical errors are very common, even by experienced typists.
Is anyone here interested in taking a typing test? Try this one:
http://www.typeonline.co.uk/typingspeed.php
or this one:
http://typera.tk/index.cws
And how many of us would even realize if the SS# we were issued was actually for the state we applied from?
Doc,
In your analysis, the number meant to be typed in was typed in wrong. I don’t know what kind of a system would have been in place to catch those kind of errors. It seems that would be a concern because typos happen. Would the system in place then have picked up that the number was already given out so as not to assign it to someone in Connecticut? If the number was never meant to be that particular number and was a typo, would someone else have been given that number, unless the system automatically made that number unavailable?
I may have to try again to explain. I don’t know if you will get my question.
would someone else have been given that same number I mean
No. If the number is assigned, it is assigned. If the typo occured on the postcode that just means the SSN is taken from the ‘wrong’ pool of numbers that’s all. In the end the number is arbitrary, the state by state pools was just an administration tool to ensure that numbers didn’t get assigned twice. Now that we have computers and networks it doesn’t make any difference what-so-ever.
Having said that, mistakes have been made in the past, and will probably be made in the future.
Yes, of course. Is there another place where the typo could have occurred?
It seems like this would be a common mistake.
charo: Yes, of course. Is there another place where the typo could have occurred? It seems like this would be a common mistake.
It most likely was the Zip Code. Typing a zero instead of a 9 would have turned a Hawaii Zip Code into a Connecticut Zip Code.
I assume that when an application was received and approved, a clerk had the job of entering the applicant’s name and address into the system. By 1977 the system was automated, so the SSN would then have been generated automatically. A wrong Zip Code may have caused a delay in Obama receiving his Social Security card, but it would have been delivered eventually if everything else about the address was correct.
Obama would not have recognized that there was anything amiss about his SSN, because in those days nobody outside of the Social Security Administration had any knowledge of what the numbers signified.
I have never heard of an instance in which two people were issued the same SSN, but that doesn’t mean that it never happened.
In some cases, it would be caught immediately. In the scenario the doctor is describing the leading digit of the zip code was typed in wrong. The President was using his grandparents address as a permanent address. Their zip code in 1976 was 96814, but 06814 is a Danbury, Connecticut zip code. But suppose they had typed in 76814, that would have been kicked out because it isn’t a legitmate zip code.
Too funny!
DMV made a mistake on my Drivers License once.
They had me as 5’3″ tall, in reality I am 6’3″ tall.
It seems that two people being issued the same SSN happens fairly frequently:
“For 20 million Americans, two Social Security Numbers are Not Enough
CBS News
August 10, 2010
“The majority of these cases are likely due to data entry errors which occur somewhere along the food chain of these credit applications and then they propagate in the system,” according to Stephen Coggeshall, chief technology officer, ID Analytics, the consumer risk management company, which published a recent study disclosing its findings. Among other things, ID Analytics found the following:
6.1 percent of Americans have at least two SSNs
More than 100,000 Americans have five or more SSNs
More than 15 percent of SSNs are associated with two or more people
More than 140,000 SSNs are associated with five or more people
More than 27,000 SSNs are associated with 10 or more people
Fraud accounts for about 15% to 20% of the total, where applicants deliberately provide the wrong social security number. But Coggeshall noted that human errors during the course of the credit-granting process account for most of the screw-ups. “Let’s say that you apply to a company and the person on the telephone incorrectly enters the number incorrectly, that problem will be associated with the person whose number they entered incorrectly,” Coggeshall said. “These kinds of errors tend to be cumulative; once they happen, they tend to stick.”
Update: A spokesman for the Social Security Administration emailed a prepared statement to CBSNews.com, noting that “as other entities use the SSN for purposes beyond what it was created for, problems like those indicated in the report are going to happen.??”
1965 Funny thing, once the numbers were by Social Security Office. Since we DIDN’T have computers and the office issues a card immediately, they must have preprinted stock of prenumbered cards/forms. Now that we have computers there is no need to ensure that a local SSA office has an adequate stock of forms. Computers didn’t get involved until much later, so where your number came from means very little except that you have a number. It don’t mean nothin…
1. If an error was made entering the ZIP code in the system, the card should have been sent to Connecticut, not Hawaii, right?
2. Had this been a simple typo – why would Orly’s FOIA requests for public information be ignored?
Everything is in order, it is just a little typo – the number was not fraudulently used by Obama.
Correct.
1. It would have been sent to the return address in Honolulu, Hawaii. The post office is use to dealing with wrong zip codes.
2. Because she is asking for information on a living person,
The scenarios described don’t result in two people being ISSUED the same SSN.
They result in two people having credit records with the same SSN listed. Only one of those persons has the correct SSN listed, and the other one would have some records ‘correct’ and other records ‘incorrect’.
When SSN started up, they arranged for wallet manufacturers to insert a sample SS card in them for publicity. This continued into the 70’s I think, I certainly had several wallets with them. Many people, especially in the early days, mistakenly thought this sample card was theirs and used that number. I believe there were, at one time several thousand people incorrectly listing their SSN as 444-44-4444.
Having said that, I believe there are cases on record where two people have been mistakenly ISSUED the same SSN by the SS Administration. I am under the impression that they number less than 20.
Yes, it would. Based on anecdotes from commenters here over the past months, it seems that having a number from the “wrong” series is not all that rare.
Since there are no “bad consequences” from getting a number from the wrong series, one might conclude that there was no reason for SSA to go to any special trouble to prevent it happening.
In my experience (and I was writing software in the 1970’s), error checking has improved over the years. Older systems ran on older hardware with limited resources and they didn’t have the level of editing that one would see in a modern system. Given that there is really no problem if someone gets a number from a foreign series, they would not have had a reason to go to the trouble to check for it.
Once the number was assigned, it would not be assigned again. That is the kind of error that makes a nasty mess and would be checked for.
My father’s Army discharge papers botched his height (5’6″ instead of 5’8″) and eye color (blue instead of green). I have no doubt that plenty of other government records have errors.
Our French zip code corresponds to that of some parts of Brooklyn (NY), and we have had mail from the US misdirected because if that.
I once got a check from Soros, intended for someone else.
Those kind of errors, as in the case of Doc’s taxes, have no potential to affect anyone else. They are unique to that person. My question was different in context and has been addressed.
Correct. There is a difference between two people being “associated” with the same SSN and two people being issued the same SSN. Sometimes the associations are the result of typographical errors by credit bureaus, sometimes they are the result of the conflation of records involving two people with the same name (that happens frequently when parents and children have the same name), and sometimes they actually involve fraud.
We know that Obama’s name is “associated” with multiple SSNs but there is no evidence that he has been issued multiple SSNs.
Having said that, I believe there are cases on record where two people have been mistakenly ISSUED the same SSN by the SS Administration. I am under the impression that they number less than 20.
That’s certainly possible. Airlines use computerized systems to issue seating assignments, but I still occasionally see a situation where two passengers have been assigned the same seat. Mistakes happen – except in birferdom, where every anomaly is evidence of a conspiracy.
If the dispatching Post Office was using an automated sorting system, by Zip Code, the card would have been sent to Connecticut. However, once it arrived there, a sorting clerk would have realized that Honolulu is not in Connecticut. At that point, someone most likely would have crossed out the incorrect Zip Code and the envelope was routed to Hawaii. On the other hand, it is possible that a sorting clerk spotted the mismatch immediately and it never went to Connecticut.
Here’s an experiment for you. Try sending a letter to my alma mater, Western Connecticut State University, which is located in Danbury, CT 06810. Address it this way:
Western Connecticut State University
181 White Street
Danbury, CT 96810
96810, of course, is a Honolulu Zip Code. The wrong Zip Code may cause your letter to be delayed, but it will not be returned to you. It will be delivered, just as Obama’s Social Security card was delivered to him..
2.Had this been a simple typo – why would Orly’s FOIA requests for public information be ignored?
Because there is no “public information” in the Social Security records of living people.
I’m on direct deposit.
My recollection is that my Social Security Card was issued by my local Post Office. I filled out the application, handed it and my birth certificate to a postal clerk, and I believe that I picked up my card there the same day. It was a small town and there was no local SSA office.
My Social Security Card was issued by a black man, about 6 feet tall, thin, and was smoking. He also gave me two books written by some Jew.
I met him near the Chicago stockyards.
Social Security Numbers originally were intended to be used only for SSA purposes. They were never intended to be used for identification or as Tax ID numbers, and there was no expectation that they would be needed for credit purposes.
My father was a self-employed doctor. He didn’t obtain a SSN until he was 48 years old, because he didn’t need one before then. For many years self-employed people weren’t enrolled in Social Security.
Here is a brief history of post office automation;
“The Department’s accelerated mechanization program began in the late 1960s and consisted of semi-automatic equipment such as the MPLSM, the single position letter sorting machine (SPLSM), and the facer-canceler. In November 1965, the Department put a high-speed optical character reader (OCR) into service in the Detroit Post Office. This first-generation machine was connected to an MPLSM frame and read the city/state/ZIP Code line of typed addresses to sort letters to one of the 277 pockets. Each subsequent handling of the letter required that the address be read again.
Mechanization increased productivity. By the mid-1970s, however, it was clear that cheaper, more efficient methods and equipment were needed if the Postal Service was to offset rising costs associated with growing mail volume. To reduce the number of mail piece handlings, the Postal Service began to develop an expanded ZIP Code in 1978.”
“The new code required new equipment. The Post Office entered the age of automation in September 1982 when the first computer-driven single-line optical character reader was installed in Los Angeles. The equipment required a letter to be read only once at the originating office by an OCR, which printed a barcode on the envelope. At the destinating office, a less expensive barcode sorter (BCS) sorted the mail by reading its barcode. ”
http://inventors.about.com/od/mstartinventions/a/PostalMechanization.htm
I didn’t get my SSN # until I was 12 or a little after. It actually wasn’t necessary until I was 14, when my father died and my mother applied for survivor’s benefits on my behalf.
” . . . why would Orly’s FOIA requests for public information be ignored?
That’s a really stupid question even for a birther idiot.
“I’m not asking for Obama’s Social Security number,” Attorney Orly Taitz told WND, acknowledging that the Social Security Administration will not release the number of a living person.
But also considering that in reality she has no problem publishing anyone’s SSN in violation of the law or any private information whatsoever, another irony meter explodes and another birther idiot rule of hypocrisy is added to the ever growing list of hypocrisies.
I didn’t get mine until I was 18. Prior to that my summer jobs were caddying at local country clubs, where I was paid in cash and there was no need for a Social Security Number. Then I got a real job for seven months until I went into the Navy. The military did not start using the SSN as a service number until 1969 or so. My service number was the letter B followed by six digits.
Birthers seem to not understand the whole FOIA thing. FOIA isn’t designed to give someone access to any record created by any organization, public or private, in the history of the universe.
It covers specific types of government records that are not otherwise protected by privacy, security, proprietary information, or other laws.
Birthers seem to have this feeling that they can send FOIA requests practically anywhere – the Bar Association, Columbia University, passport offices, public and private institutions, and automatically get stuff, and that any time they are refused it is due to some conspiracy. In reality, while many requests are routine, others require non-negligible amounts of work to ensure the government doesn’t end up liable for the release of private/confidential information.
The birthers can’t understand that the fact that the target is now the President is irrelevant – of a simple FOIA request could get the President’s birth certificate and SSN, it could get THEIRS TOO. The same laws that protect them as private citizens protect the President as one too.
There is only one thing better than cash. O.K. Maybe two.
Carl Spackler: So I jump ship in Hong Kong and I make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas.
Angie D’Annunzio: A looper?
Carl Spackler: A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I’m a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald… striking. So, I’m on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one – big hitter, the Lama – long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga… gunga, gunga-lagunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he’s gonna stiff me. And I say, “Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.” And he says, “Oh, uh, there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.” So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.
Apropos of this discussion:
In Keyes v. Bowen, one of the allegations was that Debra Bowen had permitted voter fraud because one of the electors pledged to Obama, Ilene Huber, was deceased and that a woman named Ilene Haber was permitted to vote in her place. Here is how that court ruled on that:
The court dispensed with the claim concerning California Elector “Ilene Huber” by taking judicial notice of a document showing that the name had been a typographical error and that “Ilene Haber” was the actual elector, not an improper replacement.
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/C062321.PDF
It happens.
I must be missing something. What is the connection between the president’s SSN and eligibility? Which numbers make you eligible and which make you ineligiible? is it like opposite side parking?
The birther meme is that any and all anomalies are signs of a conspiracy. They don’t realize that the probability of someone not having some kind of anomaly is close to nil.
I suspect they think that if they can catch him at SSN fraud, they can either subpoena his Birth Records, or at least get him sent to jail.
But really, who the hell knows how the short-circuited synapses of a birther comes up with crap.?
The Birthers are private citizens whho can’t lay fraud charges against anyone. They’re welcome to report their suspicions to the appropriate authorities. I have posted the toll-free # above.
I agree they can’t, but that doesn’t stop them from thinking they can.
Reminds me of a quote from a comic strip a mate of mine once published. There, the Dalai Lama was working a hot dog stand. Some guy bought a hot dog and the Lama said “That’ll be $1.50.” So the guy gives him $2, there is a pause, then the guy says “And what about my change?” and the Lama replies “Oh no, you need to understand, change must come from within.” 😉
Funny! 😀
Ron Reagan: Dad More Like Obama than Palin
ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: Amid the remembrances of Ronald Reagan in marking the 100th anniversary of his birth, one of the former president’s sons has an unlikely comparison in mind between his father and a current political figure.
Asked who is more like his father – President Obama or Sarah Palin – Ron Reagan didn’t hesitate:
“Just on the basis of intelligence, you would have to say Barack Obama. I don’t think my father has anything in common with Sarah Palin whatsoever,” Ron Reagan told us on ABC’s “Top Line” today. “I’m a little offended that we even have to talk about Sarah Palin, who has nothing interesting to say.”
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/02/ron-reagan-dad-more-like-obama-than-palin.html
Palin’s and Huckabee’s goal is to theocratize the country. Besides, if Huck ran, the Dems would pay him back with interest for Willie Horton.
“But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards”
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2010/11/few-words-from-mike-huckabee.html
Palin is a latter day Aimee Semple McPherson:
http://newyorkleftist.blogspot.com/2010/08/aimee-semple-mcpherson.html
http://www.aolnews.com/2010/06/26/two-women-share-birth-date-and-social-security-number/
One born in Illinois, one born in Florida.
I wonder if their number was one “reserved” for Illinois, Florida or some other state?
How about the customer who when asked what he wanted on the hot dog replied: “make me one with everything.” 🙂 😉
Classic!
After a dentist inspected the Dalai Lama’s tooth, he said he could fill his cavity right away. He offered to use Novacaine for the pain. The Dalai Lama declined, saying he wanted to “transcend dental medication.”
😎
Or the man who looked at the hot dog with relish….
Look to the birthers to say this is a grand conspiracy because its really rare it must have happened with Obama
Sure, assuming that the person who was born in 1890 was named Barack Obama!
What probably happened to the New York Alyssa Green is that when SSA received her application, they saw that a SSN had already been issued to Alyssa Green with the same DOB, so they handled her application as a request for a duplicate SS card.
Rickey I wouldn’t put it past them. This is why the whole confirmation of the confirmation is ridiculous. Lets certify that a certificate number on a birth certificate matches the data in the birth index. Even though the birth index says that one Barack Hussein Obama was born to Barack Hussein Obama Sr and Stanley Ann Dunham on August 4th, 1961. I think they’ll say it’s a conspiracy and that Obama Sr and Dunham’s child was replaced with a doppelganger and he is in the white house now.