Your VA ID card might expose you to identity theft
If you have a VA ID card, you’ll want to watch this video, and you’ll want to keep your ID card locked up when you don’t need it;
As I’ve said before, get Lifelock if you’re in the VA system. As many times as they’ve lost your PII and as little as they care about your information being released to the public, you really have no other choice.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
If they’d put your actual claim number on the ID card instead of your SSN, it would make sense. I don’t understand why the SSN is used for anything other than Social Security purposes.
@1: You have no idea how bad it really is, involving the possibility of identity theft and the military. Let’s just say that if I was a bad guy, there could be a lot of people to choose from concerning identity theft. I won’t go into details, because someone might be reading this, who has less than honest aspirations, but it could be very, very ugly. I can’t say anymore or I would give it away, even though it’s the worst kept secret there is.
SSN quit being used for ONLY SSN many decades ago.
I guess for the older WWII “Greatest Generation”, the Korean War generation, and the VietNam War generation, ID theft wasn’t something that they grew up with, and therefore don’t think about much unless it’s brought to their attention.
BUT, for the vet generations after that, ID theft is an everyday warning. I have my blue card (and all my other cards) in an aluminium card case. If I need to show my blue card for ID, I only show the front (I have NO idea what that dot matrix on the back says, or how easy it is to read), and I never let it out of my sight.
Read the article on this a few days ago and made sure to let my dad know about it. There is a reason that I think the VA needs a “Sweet cleansing fire” approach.
UFB… any idea how long this type of card has been in use by the VA? And I agree with Jonn about having Lifelock… it has a lot to offer.
My current card was reissued because it had my SSN on it in plain text. And now this? Effing ridiculous……………
Folks can also grab your credit card info in the same manner. because of this, I bought one of those aluminum case wallets/ I got one off of ebay for less than $10.00 and it’s lasted me for 2 years now.
The advantage is that the readers can’t make it through the aluminum case, and because of it’s size, it limits the number of ID cards, bank cards, etc, that you can carry to about 12.
Not the same exact way but it is still an issue. At least with the VA ID card they have to actually scan the bar code. Which by the way I did check out whether it works or not and yes it does with a commonly used app that I have for price checks.
Most bar codes use a simple font called Code 39. Yes, you can make hilarious funny barcodes that can totally be scanned by walmart and displayed instead of the price…
Not saying how I know, just saying…
When I retired, I spent an entire day getting checked out by the VA. They rated me at 10 percent, told me to get the hell out of there, and that I rated absolutely nothing in the way of support from them. They did give me a VA card, which I cut in half and shitcanned. And I have never been back to any VA facility since then.