Criticism For Social Security's Reliance On Accurint

      From Mismatched and Mistaken: How The Use Of An Inaccurate Private Database Results In SSI Recipients Unjustly Losing Benefits by Sarah Mancini, Kate Lang and Chi Chi Wu of the National Consumer Law Center:

... In fiscal year 2018, the Social Security Administration (SSA) began using a data set from LexisNexis (Lexis) called Accurint for Government on a widespread basis to determine whether recipients of needs-based government assistance had unreported real property that could dis-qualify them from the receipt of such benefits.

Since the advent of SSA’s use of the Accurint for Government (Accurint) product, advocates representing individuals receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits have reported significant problems with clients being falsely accused of owning real property. People who rely on SSI to survive have received letters from SSA suspending their benefits or assessing an overpayment based on supposedly owning real property that puts them over the resource limit. Often the suspension letter does not even identify the alleged real property at issue. Too often, the data relied upon is inaccurate. Vulnerable SSI recipients, who are by definition either disabled or elderly and extremely low income, must attempt to prove a negative—prove that they do not own the real property—to the satisfaction of the employees in their local SSA office. And even worse, they may lose their benefits or face an offset for alleged overpayment during that appeal process, depending on the timing of their appeal.

Lexis appears to be attempting to evade the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), by inserting a disclaimer at the bottom of its promotional website stating, “Accurint for Government is not a consumer report (as defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act) and may not be used for any purpose permitted by the FCRA.” This type of disclaimer is part of a wave of businesses attempting to skirt coverage of the FCRA by disclaiming any intent to provide a “consumer report.” By claiming that Accurint for Government is not a consumer report, Lexis is attempting to dodge the FCRA’s requirements to adhere to certain standards of accuracy, and SSA is trying to avoid requirements to provide notices to consumers before taking any adverse action based on information contained in the report. If the FCRA applies, consumers would have the right to dispute inaccurate information contained in the report and have it investigated and corrected by LexisNexis.

 SSA claims that it does not use the data from LexisNexis to deny or suspend benefits without independent verification, but that the data is used only to establish a lead. SSA employees are supposed to conduct an investigation to determine whether the SSI recipient owns the real property. Reports from advocates around the country refute this assertion. ...

 Many of the examples shared with National Consumer Law Center and Justice in Aging involved false real property matches. ... A Bengali SSI recipient in New York had her benefits suspended and an  $11,000 overpayment assessed against her based on real property in Florida that was in fact owned by her sister, with a similar name. ... 

Other examples involved properties that were connected with the recipient at some point, but should not have disqualified the recipient because they were transferred away many years ago or were worth less than the allowed amount ...

Accurint is returning a “match” based on a first and last name only. ... 

     I can't say that I've seen Accurint problems but I have certainly seen problems over the years with inaccurate valuations of real estate. Here are a couple of examples of Social Security going off the deep end with theoretical values of real estate:

• "Heir property" that has no real value. For example, the claimant owns a 1/8 undivided interest in a house. The only way to obtain value out of the house would be to force what is called a partition sale but the claimant lacks funds to hire a lawyer to force a partition sale. This sort of situation usually ends up with the house being sold for unpaid property taxes.
  
• Unsaleable life or remainder interest. For example, the claimant has been willed a life interest in a rundown house that is uninhabitable. In theory, the claimant could sell her life interest but who wants to buy a life interest in an uninhabitable house with the length of ownership determined by the length of someone else's life?

      Yes, I know how to handle these cases. Tell the claimant to list their interest in the property for sale and the property disappears as far as Social Security is concerned but that requires knowledge that the average claimant lacks.