The State of Wisconsin had a small company in Ripon, Wisconsin mail 150,000 tax forms to Wisconsin residents. It was a business contract that netted Ripon Printers $22,000. Everybody was happy, right? Not exactly. The information that the State provided for the “mailing labels” contained the social security number of the recipient.
Check the tax form you received in the mail. My return contained your Mom’s social security number on it. That means anyone wanting to steal a number just had to check our mailbox (or intercept our mail somehow).
I would normally ignor such a dumb mistake but apparently the social security number allows crooks to tap into your credit cards and suddenly you will be getting bills for things that you didn’t charge.
The last I heard, the State of Wisconsin was going to mail an “insurance form” to all people that had their social security numbers compromised allowing the option of having your credit cards monitored and protecting you from fraud. If you are given the option, take the free insurance. Why not? You didn’t commit the error.
Now my rant! How could the State of Wisconsin even include the social security information in their instructions to the label printers? It is not needed to complete a mailing. Estimates are that the State will pay $4,000,000 to monitor credit records if every person involved selects the insurance option. That is our money. $4,000,000 being spent by the State for a screw up. I bet somebody’s head rolled over that mistake. Yeah, right.
To compound the folly, the printing company that received $22,000 for printing the forms will pay the first $110,000 of the insurance cost. I guess you could argue that the printer was at fault for not catching the error but that is a stretch. Blaim the little guy trying to eek out a living!
So here is how our great system works. The State employees get to keep their jobs and get generous salary increases for a job well done. The private little printing company has to incur an expense of over $100,000 (because the State screwed up) and all company bonus payouts will be suspended. In fact a few people may have to be laid off to reduce costs. Is this a great system or what?
The one Grasshopper not affected lives in Minneapolis. For this particular screwup, Minnesotans are not affected.
Love,
Dad