Legal thriller author breaks down paper trail scams
If 75% of women wear the wrong bra size and 75% of men wear shirts with the wrong sleeve length, is it any wonder so many people don’t understand paper trails, don’t understand their critical roles in scam games? Fraud, shell games, scandal-mongering and scams of all kinds flourish from this tell-tale debris.
And sadly, more importantly, it’s essential to understand how all of this paper tracking information is tied together by social security numbers. (Intended to blindly rob you, this method of gathering information is obviously blatantly illegal. However, for the lawnmower manufacturer, in their pursuit of demographics trying to sell you a new lawnmower, the society seems to feel that it is ok)
Spreading like wildfire, aided by an internet scenario, what are paper trails anyway? Let’s be more specific.
In a nutshell, as they can affect you, they are all kinds of records, kept anywhere, that link business transactions with you. This can be any paper document such as a bill of sale, promissory note, receipt, application, resume submission, customs claim, insurance form, notarized statement, any legal form. These are explained in computer records.
It is largely society’s propulsion into the computer/internet age of the 1990s that has brought about this current development of the “paper trail.” It is now so efficient that the structural scheme of this thought police invasion, this all-out assault on your privacy, should scare you. Whats Next? you might ask Will you be marked with a tracking device so the government always knows where you are?
Today it’s computers, computers, the Internet, the Internet. All over. They are to blame. It’s the computer records that bring all these bits of paper information together, much to the delight of fraudsters.
Examples: purchase with a credit card? Computer. Bank deposit? Computer. House purchase? Computer. And the list goes on and on. Endless.
Make a simple one-time credit card purchase. This is stored on the bank’s computer, as well as at various way stations along the way back to your bank, on network computers. When you deposit cash into your checking account, the information is stored on a computer. When you deposit cash into your savings account, the information is stored on a computer. When you buy a house, you get a triple whammy, the transaction is stored on a computer, on paper, and on microfilm at your county recorder’s office. Every time you turn around and blink these days, it feels like something about you is being recorded on a computer.
And sadly, the common link that ties all of your business transactions together is your Social Security number. It is the commonly used identifier of the current age. By using just your social security number, the scammer can put together a nearly complete list of your business transactions going back over the years.
So stealing your SSN (which is the binding mechanism that ties everything together) and then carefully packaging it up and presenting your financial affairs to the world as “all of you” makes it easier for the scammer. This data includes privacy-invading issues such as what assets you have, where you shop, what you buy, and how much you owe on various credit accounts and loans. The expert scammer knows exactly how to pull this rope.
Unfortunately, many people today consider this to be just a minor irritation, like talking to robots on the phone while trying to make a warranty claim on a faulty computer. Red flag! It is much more serious than that. So whether you like it or not, the challenge is on you: weave, dodge, confuse, and baffle any swindlers who might be about to stalk you.
How do you do this? How do you strengthen your defenses?
You must disrupt your paper trail. This can be partially done in several ways, or combination:
1. A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (apparently), cash was used. Save your credit and debit cards. Allocate them only for occasional or emergency use and, for the most part, rediscover cash, paper and coins. Return to this simpler form of exchange whenever possible. We all feel that nostalgia isn’t what it used to be, but this step alone will go a long way toward masking its paper trail.
2. Establish a Trust. This is like turning on the porch light, with no one home. You somehow confuse the paper trail by interrupting the scammer’s view, due to the link between you and your Trust. Like the gas station attendant washing your windshield with a soapy brush, this will somewhat obscure the vision of a scammer trying to build a financial profile on you.
3. Refusing to star in the con man’s psychodrama. Go to the coast. Not physically. Simply export some of your assets. This is not considered socially acceptable. Not patriotic either. But, it is not illegal, and it is more effective. If you make yourself invisible to bureaucrats, and scammers, they won’t have an address to find you. (A page turns from a legal thriller?)
4. You ask, what if hokey pokey is really what it’s all about? Incredibly, the United States Supreme Court has ruled that bank records do not enjoy privacy protection. That’s right, none. They are considered bank property. However, you are not required to disclose your social security number when opening a non-interest bearing account, such as a checking account, debit card, or credit card. So don’t do it. You are only required to disclose your social security number to a bank for interest-bearing accounts. This is because the bank must report to the IRS, for tax purposes, how much they paid you.
5. You can even outsmart the scammer. Follow the New Hampshire state motto: “Go away and leave us alone.” Get yourself a P.O. box, and then write “he Moved, left no forwarding address” on the front of every envelope the mailman tries to deliver to your house. That would certainly leave anyone trying to steal his identity hanging by a rapidly shrinking thread. It would be like giving a sled guide dog to a blind Eskimo.
These are just some of the steps you can take to strengthen your privacy. These steps will not completely erase the scammer’s view of your financial structure. But it will hamper you to the point of near paralysis, leaving you stumbling, wondering how to write zero in Roman numerals. Consultation with a knowledgeable attorney would undoubtedly reveal further avenues of privacy restoration.
If such preventative measures were universally adopted, it would be a serious blow to fraudsters. He would leave hustlers everywhere shivering in their Hummer pickups and calling his analysts on their cell phones.
