Got a call on 8-3-09 from this number and another number leaving the same voicemail message on my cell. Message said that it was from vital records search and that in order to process my order they needed my government issued ID sent to them. Problem is that I didn't order anything from vital records. They did not leasve a call back number or website. I called the local police and they said it was just a scam, told me to google the phone number and see what I find.
It's from Vital Records. They have a service where they work with state and local officials to obtain things like birth certificates and death certificates. I ordered a Birth Certificate, but I don't care for their verification process, so I'm going about it another way.
This number belongs to ChoicePoint. Here's some info I found about them. This is MUCH more than just verifying your info.
At Privacy International's Big Brother Award ceremony held in Cambridge, MA on March 7, 2001, ChoicePoint received the "Greatest Corporate Invader" award "for massive selling of records, accurate and inaccurate to cops, direct marketers and election officials." At Privacy International's Big Brother Award ceremony held in Seattle, Washington in April 2005, ChoicePoint received the "Lifetime Menace Award" for its continued efforts to build dossiers on individuals.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is conducting an investigation of Choicepoint and other commercial data brokers, in part based on a complaint that EPIC filed at the agency in December 2004. In that complaint, Chris Jay Hoofnagle and Daniel J. Solove urged the agency to investigate the compilation and sale of personal dossiers by data brokers such as ChoicePoint. EPIC argued that the dossiers may constitute "consumer reports" for purposes of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, thus subjecting both the information seller and the buyer to regulation under the Act. Furthermore, EPIC argued that it is incumbent upon the Commission to analyze whether the sale of these dossiers circumvents the Act, giving businesses, private investigators, and law enforcement access to data that previously had been subjected to Fair Information Practices.
Some dossier products, such as the company's AutoTrackXP report, are sold without complying with the substantive and procedural protections in the Fair Credit Reporting Act, a 1970 law that broadly regulates the compilation, use, and dissemination of "consumer reports."
AutoTrackXP reports contain Social Security Numbers; driver license numbers; address history; phone numbers; property ownership and transfer records; vehicle, boat, and plane registrations; Uniform Commercial Code filings; financial information such as bankruptcies, liens, and judgments; professional licenses; business affiliations; "other people who have used the same address of the subject," "possible licensed drivers at the subject's address," and information about the data subject's relatives and neighbors. They are similar in scope and in use to standard credit reports normally protected by the Act. By selling them without the Act's protections, ChoicePoint is subverting the policy goals of federal information privacy law.
EPIC argued that companies like ChoicePoint are returning people to a pre-Fair Credit Reporting Act era, one marked by "unaccountable data companies that reported inaccurate, falsified, and irrelevant information on Americans, sometimes deliberately to drive up the prices of insurance or credit.
Later in December 2004, Choicepoint answered the EPIC letter, disputed charges, and called for a national debate. EPIC responded by challenging the company to a public debate.
In February 2005, EPIC supplemented the Choicepoint complaint. The supplemental letter raises three additional issues relevant to the rise of commercial data brokers. First, an article written by Robert O'Harrow Jr. of the Washington Post quoted Choicepoint representatives saying that the company acts like an "intelligence agency" and that the data industry should be subject to new regulations because of how personal information is being used. O'Harrow's article demonstrated the reliance on commercial data brokers for decision-making, and the growing importance that the brokers' data be accurate and their
practices accountable to the public.
Second, the letter included a dialogue from Declan McCullagh's Politechbot.com mailing list concerning the December 2004 complaint. A list message from a private investigator who uses Choicepoint noted that the company maintains an audit trail of clients who access personal information. The EPIC letter points out that law enforcement users are not subject to the audit trails, and that EPIC is unaware of a single case where a commercial data broker has turned in a user for prosecution as a result of an audit showing prohibited use of the service.
Last, the letter included a transcript of a recent television broadcast, "Someone's Watching," that aired on Dec. 18, 2004, on the Discovery Times Channel. The broadcast shows two private investigators using a commercial data broker to access a stranger's Social Security Number, employment details, and other information without any legal justification.
Also in February 2005, Choicepoint announced that the company sold personal information on at least 145,000 Americans to a criminal ring engaged in identity theft. EPIC urged the company to make available to those whose personal information was negligently disclosed the same information made available to the crooks. "It is not only a matter of fairness, but also a critical public safety concern that these individuals have in their possession the same information about them that you gave to criminals," said the February 18 letter from EPIC.
California police have reported that the criminals used the ChoicePoint data to make unauthorized address changes on at least 750 people, and investigators believe that personal information of up to 400,000 people nationwide may have been compromised.
I got this phone call at the same time I received an email from VitalChek that a death certificate I ordered had been shipped. The email gave an UPS tracking number, but it's not in the UPS system yet. The call said to hold for the next operator and then I was cut off. Should I be worried?