It only took me two months to burn out the motor on our shredder. It was probably the umpteenth credit card offer that did it — or an old bank statement, or a home equity come-on, or the phone bill.
Go ahead, call me paranoid, but just don’t ask me my mother’s maiden name.
This privacy thing is getting alarming. First there’s that quiet clause in the No Child Left Behind Act that requires schools to give students’ contact information to the Pentagon (for military recruitment) or lose federal funding. Then there’s the whole question of renewing — and extending — the Patriot Act (an even cheekier misnomer than “No Child Left Behind,” and a bigger threat to privacy).
Top it off with our growing general suspicion of identity theft. I saw a British woman chewing out the clerk at a currency exchange in JFK for asking for a Social Security number. “I nevah give that numbah out. To anyone,” she snapped. No cash for her, then.
Fulfillment houses saw this Social Security insecurity escalating in 2001, when H&R Block went on Today to beg its $1 million winner to claim his prize. (The winner thought it was a scam. He threw out the affidavit, blew off three follow-up phone calls and ignored a letter and ad slicks from Block verifying that the contest was for real.)
A few months ago, I got a phone call from some guy who had been notified by D.L. Blair that he won a sweepstakes. He, too, was worried about a scam; he found my name online and thought I could reassure him.
Yes, I told him, D.L. Blair is a real company, and they really do contact winners and ask for information. But then my paranoia kicked in: What if some unscrupulous cad was pretending to be from D.L. Blair? After all, the company’s name was all over the news — this was when the New York papers were lambasting Blair for a misprint in the Daily News’ Scratch n’ Match game. (Blair took responsibility for the typing error that left thousands of Daily News readers thinking they’d won a $100,000 jackpot.)
What if D.L. Blair was actually a victim of identity theft?
I told the erstwhile winner that while Blair is legit, I couldn’t vouch for the phone call he’d gotten. “Here’s the phone number for their headquarters,” I told him. “If you want to make sure it was really them calling you.”
The thing is, Blair doesn’t call winners; it notifies them by mail, and only asks for Social Security numbers for prizes over $600, to put on a 1099 for the IRS. Blair avoids the phone because a call like that “could be a cruel prank,” says D.L. Blair chairman Tom Conlon — a Daily News journalist himself, back in the 1960s. Besides, “people are too credulous. A strange voice out of the blue announcing you’ve won something of great value can be disarming. People can suspend their good judgment, and give information that should be kept private.”
When a tight deadline forces Blair to the phone, it gives winners an address and phone number and asks them to call back. Few callers check up before giving Blair their stats, Conlon says. And no one has complained that Blair’s questions are intrusive: “We try not to ask anything more than what’s required in the published rules.”
Did some Daily News scofflaw pose as a D.L. Blair account manager? Did the guy give up his number? There’s no telling. But it’s ironic — and scary — that the fulfillment business, built on keeping marketers’ and winners’ information safe, is vulnerable to identity theft itself.
Oh, and Daily News‘ Scratch N’ Match? Two judges threw out separate civil lawsuits against Blair in June, and a random drawing for $1 million — Plan B in the rules, in case of a printing error — is set for July 8. Ticketholders, get your SSNs ready. Me? I’m shopping for a new shredder.
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