Good news for all who wish to disappear, information brokers, data brokers and those alike are being forced out of business. The hot media coverage and current government hearings are about data brokers obtaining private information. Bills are popping up left and right about the legality of pretext and social engineering another words the ancient art of lying to get information.
Fear not America the politicians are fast at work cranking out bills like barkers in a sideshow. Some bills specify a federal law making it illegal to pretext the phone companies, other bills are trying to bring forth a national pretext law making it illegal to pretext. .
The most amazing part of this public hysteria is its all in the name of identity theft. Let us protect the privacy of American's from those who commit identity theft. From what I understand, about nine million Americans have been victims of identity theft, no doubt a real drag. The interesting part of identity theft is if you lose your wallet and someone uses your credit card you are victim of identity theft, sounds more like credit card fraud. You cannot always believe the numbers statistics can be biased.
All right Frank get to the point, I am writing this article titled Good News in Disappearing, for once Big Brother is lending a helping hand they are actually going to make disappearing easier. Those of us who enjoy being a perpetual tourist don't really judge other who seeks the same lifestyle as long as their not some criminal on the run, however, those characters can make for some good conversation.
Whatever laws sprout up will make the pursuit of finding you more difficult. Be it your ex-spouse, creditor, who ever is searching for you cannot.
I'm not saying you should pick up and beat people out of money, however, some of us have some skeletons in the closest, and some of us just want to leave everything behind. In a matter of time, your dreams are coming true from the most unlikely of friends.
Living the perpetual lifestyle is not cheap; perhaps you are a business owner that affords you these luxuries. Assuming you have a small car dealership and in these tough times, some people are not paying, time to call the repo-man to get back those cars. The repo-man tells you the cars are gone and the people have moved. Times to call the skip tracer, oh wait their out of business, it's against the law to pretext and locate the lousy SOB who took off with the car. It is only a thirty thousand dollar car; it's a loss part of business.
I could write a thousand examples of how a skip tracer or data broker has done good and minimal on how they have done badly. Skip tracers and data brokers are perhaps a necessary evil, they provide answers when needed, they move quickly when time is of the essence and operate in a gray are of legality as well as an undefined moral area. A skip tracer can be your worst nightmare as well as your best friend, it all depends what side of the fence you stand.
So good news in disappearing, pretext is ending!
Frank M. Ahearn
Ex-Skip-Tracer
