I was under the impression that using a SSN for identification purposes was illegal. A while back I went to a company that rented sound equipment to pick up some equipment for a job, and was asked for my SSN as part of my credit application. I told them that I believed that it was illegal to require an SSN and they said, in effect, if you want to rent from us, you have to give us your SSN. When I got home, I called the Social Security Administration office in Austin and after being bounced around among lots of people who knew absolutely nothing about the subject, I finally reached someone who informed me that this practice is perfectly legal as long as you're not

required< to give your SSN. Since I didn't, in theory, have to do business with these folks, they therefore apparently had every right to require my SSN as a condition of doing business with them. In point of fact, when the incident occurred, it was getting late, I had to have the equipment for my job, and so I gave them what they wanted.

At 09:35 PM 9/10/97 -0500, Jim Choate did speak as follows....

...

Questions: Is this for real? How wide spread is this? What does U-Haul do with your SSN? How difficult is it for someone (company) to get your SSN when you use your credit card?

Did you ask if it was a U-Haul requirement or a Texas one?

If you've ever given your SSN when applying for a credit card, you can be pretty sure they've got your SSN in the credit report. Perhaps if you've got a secured debit card of some sort you've been able to keep it separate from your other credit history, if any, but most people have slipped at least once, or had an account at a bank that collected the SSN for tax reasons and then included it in credit reports.

Lindsay Haisley (______) FMP Computer Services (oo) "The bull fmouse@fmp.com /------\/ stops here!" Austin, Texas, USA / | || 512-259-1190 * ||---|| * * * * * * ~~ ~~ http://www.fmp.com