Is there anything my father can do?

Question

Is there anything my father can do?
My dad was required by FEMA to complete a test for some crisis management for work. He did and submitted the information. They sent him his certificate in the mail but some ****** at FEMA put his entire name along with his social security number on the outside of the envelope for everyone to see. I was outraged as was my father. I thought he should call FEMA or even the police. Any postal worker could have written that down. What should we do? My father feels that its too late.

Answer 1

Yes, he should complain to FEMA's customer service department as well as fill out a yellow form at the post office. He also can contact his local newspaper...stories about invasion of privacy and data errors (lost laptops, etc.) are very popular.

Answer 2

He should definitely call FEMA. I would be outraged. The person that sent the certificate may not even know that they did something wrong. In any case, FEMA should be notified and I would find out what they intend to do about it in the future.

Like someone else said....the postal workers are probably the least of your concerns, and SS #'s are not that hard to obtain, and many, many people have access to them---doctor's office personnel, hospital personel, bankers, etc...

Answer 3

You should be vigilant and cautious, but not overly paranoid...
Probably the most important thing to do would be to notify a credit bureau of what happened and put a stop on any new credit requests for now... Notifying the police about what? No crime was committed... These days you can easily purchase someones SS information on the Net for as little as $9.99... So don't be too upset... It's really not that secret...

Answer 4

Your father needs to contact the credit bureaus, like Experian and find out how to put a fraud alert on his information. The alert itself is free, but there may be an annual enrollment fee if he wants to monitor his credit monthly.
Millions of people receive items from the government with their SSN on the item or visible from the outside. Your utility and phone companies probably also use a SSN number on the account. It's impossible to monitor everyone who has access. So take the intiative and monitor your own information to prevent identity theft.

Answer 5

Go to the social security administration, and contact the credit bureaus. SS might want to issue him a new number, and through the credit bureaus you can get anything not his caught. Calling the police is not a bad idea, either, in conjunction with the other two things.

Answer 6

Complain to FEMA. And maybe your Congressman.

Don't expect much from FEMA. Most incompetent governmental agency in decades! But Brownie did such a GREAT job! Our prez said so so it must be true!

Answer 7

Make sure that he makes a formal complaint to FEMA...however, Dad needs to contact Councilmen, Congressmen, Senators and whomever. This is election time. And hopefully nothing will happen.

Answer 8

There is probably nothing that your father can do. But postal workers probably aren't his biggest problem. Most of them are pretty docile and could give a sh!t less. They are union and just want the paycheck.