[bigtomrodney]

Originally Posted by techieMoe

WAIT!! He refused to actually quote me a price unless I gave him my social security number over the phone first. No go. I told him I'd call back if I ever took leave of my senses in the future and hung up.

I was in Old Navy last year on holidays and I was offered an instant 25% discount if I signed up for a loyalty card. Even though I had bought >$300 worth of clothing I declined. The girl pushed it a little so I said "I'm not American, I'm here on holidays. It wouldn't do me much good". So she said that didn't matter and it would be $75 cheaper for me.

Can't complain! So off I went holding up the queue filling out her forms. I gave all of my information and handed the form back to here. "Oh you left your Social Security Number out". So I replied; "That's correct, I'm not American. We don't use them, at least not the way you do."

What do you mean?! YOU DON'T HAVE A SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER?!!

That's correct. I'm not American. I'm from Ireland.

But how...what do...how can....?

I've never seen someone look so confused. Even if I had one I wouldn't have given it to her. Not even for that $75. But yeah the short version of the story is that in Ireland it is actually illegal for your PPSN (SSN equivalent) to be used for anything commercial at all. It is purely for dealing with the state and is considered completely private. That I am glad of

*Cough* anyone from Old Navy want to send me some tshirts and cargo pants *cough*

[Roxoff]

Originally Posted by techieMoe

I don't know if the UK has an equivalent to SSN

lol, when I read that I thought: 'Sky Sports News? That's what SSN means in my little world...

Anyway, yes we do have an equivalent, it's called 'National Insurance' - I think the word 'Insurance' means you'd better pay your taxes, or your house might burn down.

And we've got one national cable provider here in the UK now (Virgin, although they've been doing it for years... ), and they compete with the BBC's network, Sky telly, and lots of others; even British Telecom, are muscling in now. Once you have invested in a high speed network, it would seem you can run telly-on-demand services over it.

[carlosponti]

originally that is what our SSN was for just dealing with the government with the social security administration then at some point it got used for credit identity and everything else.

[Thrillhouse]

I think it's wise on Embarq's part to monitor what people are saying online about their company. Even if it's negative, they can use that information to do business better. The Internet is a new, but powerful, marketing outlet and any bad press that is distributed on it can have a dramatic affect on that company's future.

Just a week or two ago there was that whole Foxconn motherboard debacle. Even though Foxconn is fixing the bug, the damage has been done. There are a bunch of people who saw that thing online and vowed never to buy a Foxconn product again.

[bigvoo]

yup, same thing here in souther California techie, I was happy with my internet provider, and told them to leave it the same when i moved, I only moves 3 miles west, the operator says " oh we can't give you d.s.l over there the cable company owns the line....ummm. no. she then says " it will run on the d.s.l line, but will be the speed of dial up" the good news the price dropped $ 8. and if anything, it's faster than it was b-4.

[Geeth]

Aus doesn't have SSN's either. I think the closest example we have is a Tax File Number (TFN). Which is a personal identifier for wages and taxes etc.

Though we aren't meant to give the number out to any body, it's not a massive security risk as such as no where uses it to identify you other then the ATO ( tax office ) and thats still involves about 4 other personal questions

[cousinlucky]

As I mentioned TechieMoe; here on Staten Island the cable company ( Time Warner Cable ) charges way to much money for their service. Homeowners here use satelite dishes for television. Apartment dwellers are stuck with the one cable company because that is all there is.

Good luck with your Texas company.

[techieMoe]

Well, the guy came out (surprisingly on time) and got us set up. Internet works, though not at peak speed. I expected that. However coming from 200-800kbps on a cellular modem, 6,500kpbs is blazing. I'm having issues getting our wireless router to work properly, but that's not their fault.

TV has all the channels we paid for, which is good. The DVR recording function does not work, which is not good. I spent about an hour last night with a tech support guy (who sounded like he was from Brooklyn), who unfortunately couldn't get it working but took the liberty of setting up a service call for this afternoon. I fully expect that they'll just replace the box with a new one, perhaps a different brand.

All in all, I'm not unhappy. Two out of three services worked as advertised and hopefully we'll have all three this afternoon. I plan on holding the technician hostage until I've confirmed that the new box works.

[questio verum]

Originally Posted by Geeth

Aus doesn't have SSN's either. I think the closest example we have is a Tax File Number (TFN). Which is a personal identifier for wages and taxes etc.

Though we aren't meant to give the number out to any body, it's not a massive security risk as such as no where uses it to identify you other then the ATO ( tax office ) and thats still involves about 4 other personal questions

I wish I could tell you what I really think of our Social Security system (as presently administered). Don't worry though. I won't. What I can tell you is that it's not very social and it's definitely not secure. When I was a kid, social security numbers were usually not issued until about the time of your first formal employment. Usually about 14 or 15 years of age. Now they're issued at birth or soon thereafter. It's an identifier that's exploited by any crook that can get his/her hands on it. I've read reports of 6-year-olds whose SSN's have been used to falsely obtain several thousands of dollars worth of credit. The SSN's of deceased persons have been fraudulently used by forgers to make documents to sell to illegals. Of course on the more sinister end of things, SSN's have been used as part of the deceptive cover of criminals out to execute cons and other crimes against their victims. The scams are only limited by the imagination.

qv

[jayd512]

Originally Posted by techieMoe

I plan on holding the technician hostage until I've confirmed that the new box works.

As an ISP tech support agent (and at times, I help out with DVR and other video related issues), I've actually advised folks on the phone to do just that! Keep him there until you're happy with it all!