The Outsourcing of America Part II

DISCLAIMER: I am in no way trying to state or imply that any of the examples given below have happened. This is purely my brain thinking of things that COULD happen in a given situation.

So I already covered how jobs are being outsourced and how it is hurting America's economy in a previous post.

Now, I bring to you some of the other possible consequences of outsourcing.

Identity theft has become a real problem in today's society. One day everything is just peachy, the next you find out that someone has bought a car in your name and skipped out on the payments and skipped town with the car. Or you apply for a home loan and find that a credit card was issued in your name, with your information, and said card has been maxed out to it's full $20,000 limit without a penny being made in payment.

Even worse, one day the cops are beating on your door and haul you off to jail. Seems someone used your identity to open a checking account, bounce checks all over the Northwestern United States, and then vanished leaving the authorities only your social security number, driver's license number and address as a clue.

You can't figure out how this could have happened, because you never give out information like your social security number unless it is a call that you initiated, you shred all of your documents before putting them into the garbage, and you keep your social security card locked up in a fire proof safe. So just how in the hell did someone get the information to steal your identity?

Think about the company's that have outsourced their customer service and data entry to foreign countries. In fact, let me give you a hypothetical situation.

You decide to refinance your home because interest rates have dropped. So you go into the bank and talk to a loan officer. After you have filled out the loan application and left, the loan officer calls a title company to open up an order for two reasons: the bank wants a title report which will show what liens and encumbrances are against the property, and an escrow account needs to be created for the funds to pass through. You don't need to understand the hows and whys of this. All you need to understand is that the bank, which has your name, address, date of birth, driver's license number, social security number, current employer, and probably other information, has now shared that information with the title company because as part of their service to the bank is verifying that you have no outstanding judgments against you, and also meeting certain requirements set forth by the Department of Justice. Most likely you will be required by the title company to fill out a statement of information in which you will be verifying your personal information.

So now the bank has your information, and the title company has your information. Of course, in this day and age, everything is put into a computer system. This means that a whole shitload of people have access to your personal information. Wait, it gets better.

You see, the people at the bank and the title company are bound by security and privacy agreements. Put plainly, their asses would be grass if they were caught using your private information illegally.

But what if either the title company or the bank have outsourced jobs? That means that someone in a foreign country is handling data for your file, but more importantly that person has access to your personal information that has been entered into the computer system.

This person could easily sell your information to another party or use it for his/her own gain. And what can you do about it? What rights do you have about how someone in a foreign country handles your personal information? Well??? Do you think that law enforcement here can do anything about it if someone in a foreign country uses your information to steal your identity? What jurisdiction do they have?

What about your credit card companies? They have all of this information, PLUS they already have your credit card information! If your credit card company has outsourced any of its jobs, I'd watch my statements very closely. Again, what can U.S. law enforcement do about someone in a foreign country that is committing these crimes against U.S. citizens?

The very worst part is that there isn't much you can do to protect yourself. If you refuse to do business with a company that has any jobs in a foreign country, forget about getting your computer hooked up or your DVD/Recorder programmed...or just about anything else that requires you call customer service.

And as an added benefit, this outsourcing is adding millions of dollars to countries where men marry so they can extort money from the brides' families and kill their wives when they can't get any more money from the in-laws.

Yep, great system we got going, this outsourcing.