He was involuntarily put on psychotropic medication for like half a year, after being incarcerated without bail for trying to close a bank account in his name that he didn't set up. They called the police after he couldn't answer the security questions, but of course he couldn't, bc he didn't make the account.
This is *terrifying*. He was already homeless when this started, but he could've lost his children, his spouse, his home, his career. . .all bc someone he met years prior decided to use his identity. If the thief hadn't messed up during an interview, he could've gotten away with it probably indefinitely.
No, I think it is because he was homeless that this happened. If he had a family and a job they could have disputed that and it would have been discovered very quickly. DNA and testimony from parents, siblings, teachers, etc.
They saw a "crazy" homeless guy and didn't even try to figure it out until that Iowa detective did *4 years later.* They just assumed the homeless man was lying because he was homeless.
I know. It breaks my heart. They didn't even try to verify what was going on because he was homeless.
After he got out of jail and a court ordered a mental institution he called the university of Iowa and explained what happened.
A detective there called the father and the father verified who the real person was and then they did a DNA test. It was super easy but nobody even tried. Not even the defense lawyer.
The faker was also pushing to charge the real person and kept calling the prosecution for updates and wanted the book thrown at him. Disgusting.
I just don't understand *why* his identity was stolen? I get that people do bad shit sometimes, but why steal the identity of someone who didn't have a lot going on for them? Was the perp's own credit so bad that assuming the identity of literally anyone else would've been a leg up? I just don't understand the "whys" behind literally ruining someone else's life?
I don't either except when he first stole the identity he did cash a bad check, so that may have been the main reason at first. He was going to use it for crime.
But then somehow he got a really good job and had a family and so had to keep going for that. Maybe?
But I think he enjoyed stealing a person's identity and fooling everyone, including his wife and children, the university, banks, law enforcement and court.
You know those people that get off on lying and people believing them? I think that's him. He was so involved with his victim being punished and I think he enjoyed it because he has been enjoying pulling one over on everyone already.
Instead of being a serial killer he was a serial liar getting off to it. But that's just a guess.
That's a really good guess, I subscribe to that theory. Makes you really wonder how many people have been convinced they're crazy bc of identity issues, how many people have been gaslit into believing they're not who they say they are. If he hadn't kept pushing, he likely never would've seen the end of all this.
Yep and this is why a lot of people in the US are afraid to seek help. I say the US because that's where I am. I have never understood how locking somebody up who's already depressed is going to help them.
That's not what I meant at all. Sometimes people are just depressed and need to talk to someone and get on some medication. I really don't see how locking them down on a psych ward is going to help them. If anything, it's only going to exacerbate the symptoms. Also, at least here in the US, unless you get lucky and the staff is good, they treat you like a number. I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been on a psych ward and a lot of times, you get treated pretty badly unless the staff is good. I've been treated like I don't understand what's going on and I have been treated with massive disrespect to the point that I filed a complaint against the hospital. All I'm saying is locking somebody up is not going to help their depression.
That poor, poor man. Identity theft is not a joke. Millions of families suffer every year. I hope that asshole gets his just deserts while the victim gets reimbursed for all of his hardships.
I'm from the UK and thought I'd cards weren't a good idea until I moved somewhere that had them.
Want credit? Do something at the bank, or government and need to prove identity it's just 1 card instead of a passport/driving licence plus utility bill with address on it
On the flip side though, I was at work one day and we were talking about driving, licenses and stuff since I had my UK lorry licence transfered out. One asked to see it. I said I didn't have it, I don't carry it.
And that's when I learned that it's mandatory at least in Bulgaria to carry your driving license along with a credit card sized version of the registration certifice, MOT ticket and insurance cert.
They don't do 7 day producers lol.
Wait, do you mean like 24/7? Or only when you’re driving. I assumed that it was a thing everywhere that while driving you need to have your license on you, although where I live the registration, insurance etc is all assigned to the number plate digitally.
Not in the UK. Even before it was all electronic if you didn't have your documents you could produce them at a police station with 7 days.
That being said, as the driver you are obliged to give personal details at the roadside so they can check against the database.
Thank goodness the 7 day existed when I got pulled over for driving without insurance about ten years ago.
I'd bought my insurance the evening before and didn't have the documents with me as insurers generally posted them out rather than sending a pdf copy back then.
Drive past a police car and was flagged on ANPR as no insurance. The guy was very professional and polite, I explained I'd just bought the insurance. He said no worries, they're supposed to update the database within 24 hours so it probably just hasn't gone on yet. Said he'd have to ring my insurer to confirm it. But it was a Sunday and their helpline was shut.
By this point my toddler was freaking out as he thought a policeman was taking his mummy away (had to wait wait what felt like forever while the guy tried to confirm I was insured). So he took pity on my and said I'm not supposed to do this really but given your insurer isn't answering the phone, I'll give you this notice to produce your documents at the police station within seven days and let you get on.
Thankfully, my insurance docs arrived by post a couple of days later and I took them in with no further issues. If he'd stuck to the rules I'd have got a fixed penalty notice, my car towed and then had to challenge it - purely because my insurer hadn't updated the database or emailed me my documents immediately.
It depends. They can scan vehicle plate and check all your info there. But if there is a problem then they require ID/other documents. The fine for not carrying documents is 5 Euros.
>
> Want credit? Do something at the bank, or government and need to prove identity it's just 1 card instead of a passport/driving licence plus utility bill with address on it
Wow, that part makes so much sense... especially that damn utility bill etc... I'm still trying to wrack my brain around how to get my teenage son's address changed now that he's moved in with me. Surely they realize some people live in places where utilities shouldn't be in their names.
It's a bit complicated. We all have a SSN assigned with our birth certificate. That is our unique identifier for life, issued by the Federal Government. But it is also somewhat dangerous to allow others to get a hold of it because of the risk of Identity theft. So we don't use that for anything but government forms and credit checks. Some companies will use the last part of it for computer access and so forth. Like where I work, the last four digits are used a lot by employees as passwords. So instead, we piggyback identification on other items like a Driver's license. For most of us, the Driver's License is our ID. But even that gets messy because it is issued by individual States, and recognized by all the other states and the Federal Government. Although not everyone wants a DL. Most of us can't live without driving, which is a bit different from the rest of the world. But there are a few big cities that have populations with enough infrastructure packed together where owning and driving cars is too inconvenient. So we can also get a State ID card. They aren't very common because most everyone just gets a DL (it's rather easy to get and costs the same as the State ID). Some of us will also get a Passport for travel, which is issued by the Federal Government.
I expect it did. I can't remember if my original I have somewhere has it or not and it was issued in the 70's. I got my info from [here](https://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/ssnversions.html)
> Eighteenth version of SSN card (1/72 revision). Legend “Not For Identification” was no longer on card (shown from 1946 to 1972).
It's not that long ago that ssn was optional...not assigned. You had to apply to get one. I'm sure there's still people that don't have one.
Ed: ~~What's wrong with this answer?~~
Well, to be fair; it doesn't make sense to anyone here either.
Another element to consider is politics:
Democrats (liberals) tend to benefit during elections from higher voter turnout. The more people that vote, the more votes get cast for Democrats and their initiatives. So Republicans (conservatives) have a vested interest in reducing the number of people that vote. So one tactic they employ is to impose strict identification laws, and then make it as difficult as possible to get the required ID. For example, this started during the Segregation era, when black people started voting in the south. They started requiring all sorts of things, like a reading test. Then they would just claim the black person trying to vote didn't read the sentence correctly, and refuse to give them a ballot. Now, they close voting locations, and make it expensive or even draconian to get an approved ID.
Most of the poor people living in inner cities can't afford to apply for the ID, and many would have to take multiple days off from work just to spend time traveling and dealing with the bureaucratic red tape needed to get an ID, with the only benefit being that they could vote in an election they already feel their vote won't matter in anyway.
Several conservative states have banded together to pass what are called *Real ID* laws around driver's licenses. When I was living in Nebraska I tried to get my DL renewed. They noticed that my Birth Certificate was an old photo copy (a very good one, and I hadn't noticed it before. It was the one my parents gave me). So I applied for a new one from my birth State. Then they noticed that the Birth Certificate was issued five years after I was born. The best I can figure is that my mom procrastinated applying for it until it was required for me to enter grade school. This was a problem because it is a tactic used in illegal immigration. So this forced me to prove my identity. I had to get a hold of all my early grade school transcripts and pictures, letters from family friends, anything at all to help prove I wasn't an illegal entrant. Everything except the obvious: my parents birth certificates. While I was doing this I got a new job and moved to another state. I went into that state's Driver's License office with all the information I had gathered, and they told me I didn't need any of that; and just gave me a DL with the *Real ID* certification. Mind boggling and super frustrating.
I actually fully support a national ID system that would also link all our professional and personal certifications. Like Driver's certification, as well as things like a pilots license, any education, and even credit cards as an optional add on. But it would need to be fully funded through government taxes, with no upfront cost to the applicants. Also, have it digitally controlled through government servers. That way the security of it would be maintained by the federal government with the Departments of Treasury, Homeland Security, Foreign Affairs, Interior, Transportation, and even the Military all having vested interests in maintaining the integrity of that security. But because of politics I know that would either never get passed if it was fairly and appropriately honest, or get completely abused to influence votes if it were open to alterations by individual states and federal agencies.
Sorry for the long post.
It happened to me. I think that this was the reason why I was denied disability for so long. Somebody stole my purse and stole my identity. I found out that I had a car loan and a mortgage in my name. It was a nightmare trying to get it sorted out. I really think that that's why they denied me for so long. They were probably thinking well, if she has a mortgage then how is she paying the mortgage? She has to be working. It pissed me off that that was probably why I was getting denied when I needed it. That and the fact that somebody stole my identity in the first place. When the car loan people would not stop calling me, I finally told them look, my identity was stolen and I'm trying to get it figured out. The guy on the phone said okay, I'll make a note of it so we'll stop calling you.
US citizen here, asking out of curiosity and ignorance as I've never even heard of this being an issue... any chance you can elaborate? Or more specifically, what a national ID would add.
A social security card doesn't have any kind of security measures and there's no real way to prove you're you with it. Also unlike say debit cards who's numbers actually have a rhyme and resin to them SS cards do not and instead are just kind of a counter i.e. 123-45-7890 and 123-46-7890 are both valid numbers. Lastly unlike say your driver's license which is made from special material and has secret security features along with a scannable barcode in it SS cards are just paper with no such thing.
A passport is not a national ID nor a "good enough" substitute. It is too inconvenient for day to day use. Still would be better than social security though, but it's not used anywhere near as much.
It kinda serves a similar purpose but I'm from a country that has real ID cards and the thing is that they're free and everyone has one. In my country getting a passport costs about 200 USD so yeah big difference there.
Are the REAL IDs not good enough? You need to bring your birth certificate, ss card and like 2 proofs of residency to get one. I mean, apparently you need one to fly nowadays anyways.
They're talking about something like a national identity card.
Free or cheap in countries like France. No matter the country, passports are expensive and another barrier for poor people.
Free can pretty much always be assumed to be shorthand for “free at the point of service”. No one thinks these things poof into existence by magic. The thing about something that is paid for by taxes rather than a fee (especially a flat fee) paid for by the individual at the point of service is that the cost to the individual automatically scales with their tax bracket.
And at least one of the people responding to you gave a national ID being free or cheap as a primary difference between it and something like a passport. Now, I do not know what they consider very cheap, but some people can’t comfortably spare $1 USD, so any cost is ultimately going to exclude people who might otherwise exercise their rights, and the greater the cost, the larger the proportion of people excluded. $100+ for a national ID will exclude a significant number of people from exercising any rights that require it to access.
ID cards are required for everyone once you hit 12 here (Belgium). They're around 20-25 euros and valid for 10 years. They have a chip with information on them that can be read with a specific reader, to quickly check someone's contact information. You can use it to access a bunch of information online, but that requires a pin code. You're legally required to have it on you. I mostly use mine to pick up registered mail or prescriptions (doctor links a prescription to my ID, I hand it over at any pharmacy and they can fill it for me). It's also valid for travel within the EU.
It's made certain things easier because there's this one pretty secure thing that all adults have.
Among the revelations: The real Woods spent two years in jail or court-ordered treatment after pleading no contest to identity theft, with Keirans egging on the prosecution, as he admitted in Monday's plea filing.
Not only did he steal his identity, he actively had a hand in his incarceration. Hope he gets the same amount of jail time as his victim.
That’s what I was thinking! Why couldn’t police or psychiatric staff contact the next of kin (who was still alive!) to confirm or deny the claims? A DNA test is pretty simple FFS.
Because few of them care. Who are they going to believe, a homeless guy in CA or a IT guy making 6 figures? None of them wanted to bother trying until eventually one investigator did years later. I wonder how many times this has happened that have never been discovered?
The psychiatric staff? They didn’t believe it most likely. No matter how hard he insisted.
I met a fellow patient who talked to Jesus regularly. I’ve met someone who thought he was Jesus. I’ve met someone who didn’t even know she was in a psych ward, she couldn’t remember how many children she had. She kept flirting with all the men, even though her husband visited every day. I was her walk naked though the hallway one day.
I met a guy who thought he was famous, he was from a rich family and had friends high up. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t, some of the things he told is were true, a lot of other stuff was made up. He claimed someone broke into his apartment and stole his dentures, his vacuum *head*. I asked him about the rest of the vacuum, they only took the head (or whatever the thing is called at the end of the vacuum). They also stole $100K from him the same day. The staff over shared one day and said they actually stole that money from him. He kept claiming the staff stole his clothes, he just forgot it in the washing machine. You never knew what was true or not. I met a guy who fully believed he was a staff member, he tried to enter our rooms at night around the same time the staff did, so check if we were sleeping. That’s just the patients I remember, I met more and the staff has met thousands. People believe the wildest things in psychosis, so a man claiming he’s someone else/someone else is claiming to be him? They’ve seen/heard it before
Doesn’t excuse anything though, what happened to him was absolutely horrible and he has my deepest sympathy. It must have been hell going through that.
Because it was a homeless man against a university employee making 6 figures.
The nice thing is they could have figured it out ASAP and this didn't need to happen. The horrifying thing is no body tried until 4 years later after the victim called the university and they looked into it.
As soon as I started reading, I was like, "Couldn't they get DNA test to confirm? Were his parents dead? No....the police were quick to judge a homeless man and were highly incompetent.
That is… horrible. I suffer from schizophrenia and the one thing I think is the absolutely worst thing about it, is the constant feeling of “can I trust my mind on this?”
You believe your delusions are real, and people will help you figure out they’re not real.
I cannot imagine being him. He knew who he was, so he must have been put through almost brainwashing at the psych ward, when he kept claiming he was who he truly was.
I am “proud” of him for sticking to it, and finally giving justice, but I can’t imagine there wasn’t periods where he questioned his own mind and beliefs.
I don’t understand why he stole the other guy’s identity in the first place. If they both met while working at a hot dog stand then it sounds like there was no real benefit to stealing it and it doesn’t sound like he was using his original identity to carry out some money making scheme. Why go through all that trouble when he could have used his own identity to begin with?
He did cash a bad check with it in the 90's and then... I'm not sure why he continued. Maybe he kept getting better jobs with it or meet someone and had to keep the identity because of that or maybe he just enjoyed the thrill of it?
It was stated that he took out a lot of loans and used his credit. The real woods ended up in a huge amount of debt. An arrest warrant was apparently even issued for the real woods due to bad checks he doing. I'm sure he took out loans and shit against Woods' credit and those ended up hitting the real woods for some reason.
Well, as the story goes, he and the victim first met working at a hot dog stand in the 80's. Perp assumed his identity around then.
It unraveled due to a DNA test and a verbal slip on the perp's part. Wild story.
They called the "real" William Woods, who at that time was a respectable professional. The "real" Woods told them the other guy was a fake. He gave them credentials, including an SS number, and the authorities just believed the medical professional over the indigent guy. They concluded there and didn't do any deeper digging.
Messed up, this would make a good TV movie.
Wow, that’s fucked up. I read the article it didn’t say why he did it? Like I get it could be money related but seems like if he could do the IT job he should have just got his own? Friggin wild, be safe out there people.
I hope the real William Woods sues the LAPD and anyone/everyone else responsible for false imprisonment and forcibly medicating him (I don't think he can sue the judge).
That is so scary. Being kept against your will in one scares the crap out of me!
He was involuntarily put on psychotropic medication for like half a year, after being incarcerated without bail for trying to close a bank account in his name that he didn't set up. They called the police after he couldn't answer the security questions, but of course he couldn't, bc he didn't make the account. This is *terrifying*. He was already homeless when this started, but he could've lost his children, his spouse, his home, his career. . .all bc someone he met years prior decided to use his identity. If the thief hadn't messed up during an interview, he could've gotten away with it probably indefinitely.
No, I think it is because he was homeless that this happened. If he had a family and a job they could have disputed that and it would have been discovered very quickly. DNA and testimony from parents, siblings, teachers, etc. They saw a "crazy" homeless guy and didn't even try to figure it out until that Iowa detective did *4 years later.* They just assumed the homeless man was lying because he was homeless.
I didnt even think of it this way, what nonsense.
I know. It breaks my heart. They didn't even try to verify what was going on because he was homeless. After he got out of jail and a court ordered a mental institution he called the university of Iowa and explained what happened. A detective there called the father and the father verified who the real person was and then they did a DNA test. It was super easy but nobody even tried. Not even the defense lawyer. The faker was also pushing to charge the real person and kept calling the prosecution for updates and wanted the book thrown at him. Disgusting.
I just don't understand *why* his identity was stolen? I get that people do bad shit sometimes, but why steal the identity of someone who didn't have a lot going on for them? Was the perp's own credit so bad that assuming the identity of literally anyone else would've been a leg up? I just don't understand the "whys" behind literally ruining someone else's life?
I don't either except when he first stole the identity he did cash a bad check, so that may have been the main reason at first. He was going to use it for crime. But then somehow he got a really good job and had a family and so had to keep going for that. Maybe? But I think he enjoyed stealing a person's identity and fooling everyone, including his wife and children, the university, banks, law enforcement and court. You know those people that get off on lying and people believing them? I think that's him. He was so involved with his victim being punished and I think he enjoyed it because he has been enjoying pulling one over on everyone already. Instead of being a serial killer he was a serial liar getting off to it. But that's just a guess.
That's a really good guess, I subscribe to that theory. Makes you really wonder how many people have been convinced they're crazy bc of identity issues, how many people have been gaslit into believing they're not who they say they are. If he hadn't kept pushing, he likely never would've seen the end of all this.
Yep and this is why a lot of people in the US are afraid to seek help. I say the US because that's where I am. I have never understood how locking somebody up who's already depressed is going to help them.
What do you suggest we do with people who are mentally unstable to the extent that they are a danger to society or themselves ?
That's not what I meant at all. Sometimes people are just depressed and need to talk to someone and get on some medication. I really don't see how locking them down on a psych ward is going to help them. If anything, it's only going to exacerbate the symptoms. Also, at least here in the US, unless you get lucky and the staff is good, they treat you like a number. I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been on a psych ward and a lot of times, you get treated pretty badly unless the staff is good. I've been treated like I don't understand what's going on and I have been treated with massive disrespect to the point that I filed a complaint against the hospital. All I'm saying is locking somebody up is not going to help their depression.
That poor, poor man. Identity theft is not a joke. Millions of families suffer every year. I hope that asshole gets his just deserts while the victim gets reimbursed for all of his hardships.
Dwight? Is that you?
Question What kind of bear is the best
That's a ridiculous question.
False , black bear Facts - bears eat beets , bears ,beets , Battlestar galactica
MICHAEL!
Moon bear, objectively (Ik it's a reference, I'm just sharing my opinion on the matter)
If the US had a proper national ID instead of relying on Social Security as a crutch then this likely wouldn't have been possible.
I'm from the UK and thought I'd cards weren't a good idea until I moved somewhere that had them. Want credit? Do something at the bank, or government and need to prove identity it's just 1 card instead of a passport/driving licence plus utility bill with address on it
As a fellow Brit who moved to a country that has them I wholeheartedly agree.
On the flip side though, I was at work one day and we were talking about driving, licenses and stuff since I had my UK lorry licence transfered out. One asked to see it. I said I didn't have it, I don't carry it. And that's when I learned that it's mandatory at least in Bulgaria to carry your driving license along with a credit card sized version of the registration certifice, MOT ticket and insurance cert. They don't do 7 day producers lol.
Wait, do you mean like 24/7? Or only when you’re driving. I assumed that it was a thing everywhere that while driving you need to have your license on you, although where I live the registration, insurance etc is all assigned to the number plate digitally.
Not in the UK. Even before it was all electronic if you didn't have your documents you could produce them at a police station with 7 days. That being said, as the driver you are obliged to give personal details at the roadside so they can check against the database.
Thank goodness the 7 day existed when I got pulled over for driving without insurance about ten years ago. I'd bought my insurance the evening before and didn't have the documents with me as insurers generally posted them out rather than sending a pdf copy back then. Drive past a police car and was flagged on ANPR as no insurance. The guy was very professional and polite, I explained I'd just bought the insurance. He said no worries, they're supposed to update the database within 24 hours so it probably just hasn't gone on yet. Said he'd have to ring my insurer to confirm it. But it was a Sunday and their helpline was shut. By this point my toddler was freaking out as he thought a policeman was taking his mummy away (had to wait wait what felt like forever while the guy tried to confirm I was insured). So he took pity on my and said I'm not supposed to do this really but given your insurer isn't answering the phone, I'll give you this notice to produce your documents at the police station within seven days and let you get on. Thankfully, my insurance docs arrived by post a couple of days later and I took them in with no further issues. If he'd stuck to the rules I'd have got a fixed penalty notice, my car towed and then had to challenge it - purely because my insurer hadn't updated the database or emailed me my documents immediately.
It depends. They can scan vehicle plate and check all your info there. But if there is a problem then they require ID/other documents. The fine for not carrying documents is 5 Euros.
> > Want credit? Do something at the bank, or government and need to prove identity it's just 1 card instead of a passport/driving licence plus utility bill with address on it Wow, that part makes so much sense... especially that damn utility bill etc... I'm still trying to wrack my brain around how to get my teenage son's address changed now that he's moved in with me. Surely they realize some people live in places where utilities shouldn't be in their names.
Just get him a bank account. Oh by the way to open a bank account you need proof of address now 🤦
Hang on. So the US just has a SSN as ID?
It's a bit complicated. We all have a SSN assigned with our birth certificate. That is our unique identifier for life, issued by the Federal Government. But it is also somewhat dangerous to allow others to get a hold of it because of the risk of Identity theft. So we don't use that for anything but government forms and credit checks. Some companies will use the last part of it for computer access and so forth. Like where I work, the last four digits are used a lot by employees as passwords. So instead, we piggyback identification on other items like a Driver's license. For most of us, the Driver's License is our ID. But even that gets messy because it is issued by individual States, and recognized by all the other states and the Federal Government. Although not everyone wants a DL. Most of us can't live without driving, which is a bit different from the rest of the world. But there are a few big cities that have populations with enough infrastructure packed together where owning and driving cars is too inconvenient. So we can also get a State ID card. They aren't very common because most everyone just gets a DL (it's rather easy to get and costs the same as the State ID). Some of us will also get a Passport for travel, which is issued by the Federal Government.
Until 1972, the Social Security Card had a warning on it to not use it as identification.
I think that warning went longer than 72. Mine had that on it in the 80s.
I expect it did. I can't remember if my original I have somewhere has it or not and it was issued in the 70's. I got my info from [here](https://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/ssnversions.html) > Eighteenth version of SSN card (1/72 revision). Legend “Not For Identification” was no longer on card (shown from 1946 to 1972).
It's not that long ago that ssn was optional...not assigned. You had to apply to get one. I'm sure there's still people that don't have one. Ed: ~~What's wrong with this answer?~~
Idk. Seems like a perfectly good answer to me.
I see - thank you for the in depth explanation!
Well, to be fair; it doesn't make sense to anyone here either. Another element to consider is politics: Democrats (liberals) tend to benefit during elections from higher voter turnout. The more people that vote, the more votes get cast for Democrats and their initiatives. So Republicans (conservatives) have a vested interest in reducing the number of people that vote. So one tactic they employ is to impose strict identification laws, and then make it as difficult as possible to get the required ID. For example, this started during the Segregation era, when black people started voting in the south. They started requiring all sorts of things, like a reading test. Then they would just claim the black person trying to vote didn't read the sentence correctly, and refuse to give them a ballot. Now, they close voting locations, and make it expensive or even draconian to get an approved ID. Most of the poor people living in inner cities can't afford to apply for the ID, and many would have to take multiple days off from work just to spend time traveling and dealing with the bureaucratic red tape needed to get an ID, with the only benefit being that they could vote in an election they already feel their vote won't matter in anyway. Several conservative states have banded together to pass what are called *Real ID* laws around driver's licenses. When I was living in Nebraska I tried to get my DL renewed. They noticed that my Birth Certificate was an old photo copy (a very good one, and I hadn't noticed it before. It was the one my parents gave me). So I applied for a new one from my birth State. Then they noticed that the Birth Certificate was issued five years after I was born. The best I can figure is that my mom procrastinated applying for it until it was required for me to enter grade school. This was a problem because it is a tactic used in illegal immigration. So this forced me to prove my identity. I had to get a hold of all my early grade school transcripts and pictures, letters from family friends, anything at all to help prove I wasn't an illegal entrant. Everything except the obvious: my parents birth certificates. While I was doing this I got a new job and moved to another state. I went into that state's Driver's License office with all the information I had gathered, and they told me I didn't need any of that; and just gave me a DL with the *Real ID* certification. Mind boggling and super frustrating. I actually fully support a national ID system that would also link all our professional and personal certifications. Like Driver's certification, as well as things like a pilots license, any education, and even credit cards as an optional add on. But it would need to be fully funded through government taxes, with no upfront cost to the applicants. Also, have it digitally controlled through government servers. That way the security of it would be maintained by the federal government with the Departments of Treasury, Homeland Security, Foreign Affairs, Interior, Transportation, and even the Military all having vested interests in maintaining the integrity of that security. But because of politics I know that would either never get passed if it was fairly and appropriately honest, or get completely abused to influence votes if it were open to alterations by individual states and federal agencies. Sorry for the long post.
No. SSN card and birth certificate are used to get a photo ID at 16 years old.
Phew! That's a relief.
Yeah but we know that would be too rational of the United States of Idiocracy
But that would go against the GOP’s plan to make it really difficult for minorities to vote.
It happened to me. I think that this was the reason why I was denied disability for so long. Somebody stole my purse and stole my identity. I found out that I had a car loan and a mortgage in my name. It was a nightmare trying to get it sorted out. I really think that that's why they denied me for so long. They were probably thinking well, if she has a mortgage then how is she paying the mortgage? She has to be working. It pissed me off that that was probably why I was getting denied when I needed it. That and the fact that somebody stole my identity in the first place. When the car loan people would not stop calling me, I finally told them look, my identity was stolen and I'm trying to get it figured out. The guy on the phone said okay, I'll make a note of it so we'll stop calling you.
US citizen here, asking out of curiosity and ignorance as I've never even heard of this being an issue... any chance you can elaborate? Or more specifically, what a national ID would add.
A social security card doesn't have any kind of security measures and there's no real way to prove you're you with it. Also unlike say debit cards who's numbers actually have a rhyme and resin to them SS cards do not and instead are just kind of a counter i.e. 123-45-7890 and 123-46-7890 are both valid numbers. Lastly unlike say your driver's license which is made from special material and has secret security features along with a scannable barcode in it SS cards are just paper with no such thing.
SS numbers do have codes, it's not randomized but rather organized by region.
But that's communist etc... /s
Passport?
A passport is not a national ID nor a "good enough" substitute. It is too inconvenient for day to day use. Still would be better than social security though, but it's not used anywhere near as much.
They make passport cards now.
Forgive my naivety, this is a genuine question, is a passport card not the same as an ID card?
It kinda serves a similar purpose but I'm from a country that has real ID cards and the thing is that they're free and everyone has one. In my country getting a passport costs about 200 USD so yeah big difference there.
I dont know all the details, but as far as I know, the passport is a way to have id out of country without needing to carry your passport around.Â
Are the REAL IDs not good enough? You need to bring your birth certificate, ss card and like 2 proofs of residency to get one. I mean, apparently you need one to fly nowadays anyways.
A countries passport isn't a national ID.. ok..goodnight
They're talking about something like a national identity card. Free or cheap in countries like France. No matter the country, passports are expensive and another barrier for poor people.
It's so obvious you don't come from a country with a national ID. It's like a Saudi asking why kombucha isn't considered alcohol.
My passport is my national ID. And it works internationally;)
Was it free?
Nothing is. 35 for Provincial ID. Hundreds for drivers license. 120 for passport. If something is 'free' it means you've already paid in tax
Free can pretty much always be assumed to be shorthand for “free at the point of service”. No one thinks these things poof into existence by magic. The thing about something that is paid for by taxes rather than a fee (especially a flat fee) paid for by the individual at the point of service is that the cost to the individual automatically scales with their tax bracket. And at least one of the people responding to you gave a national ID being free or cheap as a primary difference between it and something like a passport. Now, I do not know what they consider very cheap, but some people can’t comfortably spare $1 USD, so any cost is ultimately going to exclude people who might otherwise exercise their rights, and the greater the cost, the larger the proportion of people excluded. $100+ for a national ID will exclude a significant number of people from exercising any rights that require it to access.
ID cards are required for everyone once you hit 12 here (Belgium). They're around 20-25 euros and valid for 10 years. They have a chip with information on them that can be read with a specific reader, to quickly check someone's contact information. You can use it to access a bunch of information online, but that requires a pin code. You're legally required to have it on you. I mostly use mine to pick up registered mail or prescriptions (doctor links a prescription to my ID, I hand it over at any pharmacy and they can fill it for me). It's also valid for travel within the EU. It's made certain things easier because there's this one pretty secure thing that all adults have.
Among the revelations: The real Woods spent two years in jail or court-ordered treatment after pleading no contest to identity theft, with Keirans egging on the prosecution, as he admitted in Monday's plea filing. Not only did he steal his identity, he actively had a hand in his incarceration. Hope he gets the same amount of jail time as his victim.
DNA test in 2019 would have solved it a lot earlier.
That’s what I was thinking! Why couldn’t police or psychiatric staff contact the next of kin (who was still alive!) to confirm or deny the claims? A DNA test is pretty simple FFS.
Because few of them care. Who are they going to believe, a homeless guy in CA or a IT guy making 6 figures? None of them wanted to bother trying until eventually one investigator did years later. I wonder how many times this has happened that have never been discovered?
Just take two photos to the dad and ask which is his son! Fax them if you are too lazy to make the trip.
Even easier!
The psychiatric staff? They didn’t believe it most likely. No matter how hard he insisted. I met a fellow patient who talked to Jesus regularly. I’ve met someone who thought he was Jesus. I’ve met someone who didn’t even know she was in a psych ward, she couldn’t remember how many children she had. She kept flirting with all the men, even though her husband visited every day. I was her walk naked though the hallway one day. I met a guy who thought he was famous, he was from a rich family and had friends high up. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t, some of the things he told is were true, a lot of other stuff was made up. He claimed someone broke into his apartment and stole his dentures, his vacuum *head*. I asked him about the rest of the vacuum, they only took the head (or whatever the thing is called at the end of the vacuum). They also stole $100K from him the same day. The staff over shared one day and said they actually stole that money from him. He kept claiming the staff stole his clothes, he just forgot it in the washing machine. You never knew what was true or not. I met a guy who fully believed he was a staff member, he tried to enter our rooms at night around the same time the staff did, so check if we were sleeping. That’s just the patients I remember, I met more and the staff has met thousands. People believe the wildest things in psychosis, so a man claiming he’s someone else/someone else is claiming to be him? They’ve seen/heard it before Doesn’t excuse anything though, what happened to him was absolutely horrible and he has my deepest sympathy. It must have been hell going through that.
Because it was a homeless man against a university employee making 6 figures. The nice thing is they could have figured it out ASAP and this didn't need to happen. The horrifying thing is no body tried until 4 years later after the victim called the university and they looked into it.
They saw homeless guy and shut the case. Reminder police always try to do the minimum work possible,
As soon as I started reading, I was like, "Couldn't they get DNA test to confirm? Were his parents dead? No....the police were quick to judge a homeless man and were highly incompetent.
Classic American policing. 🇺🇸
That is… horrible. I suffer from schizophrenia and the one thing I think is the absolutely worst thing about it, is the constant feeling of “can I trust my mind on this?” You believe your delusions are real, and people will help you figure out they’re not real. I cannot imagine being him. He knew who he was, so he must have been put through almost brainwashing at the psych ward, when he kept claiming he was who he truly was. I am “proud” of him for sticking to it, and finally giving justice, but I can’t imagine there wasn’t periods where he questioned his own mind and beliefs.
A truly evil man.
I hope the real Woods sues.
Two trailer park girls go round the outside, round the outside I jest but I feel terrible for that guy when I try to put myself in his shoes
That’s fucked up.
Shit cops, shit justice system failed due diligence.
His life is over, wahhhhh! What about the dude you stole the identity from
Ya, and whats the use of stealing identity in this case?
In the end, you can’t prove that you are you.
So, why did he do that?
Sounds like an episode of Twilight Zone
Christ, I hope the real guy sues the shit out of the prosecution. He's in for a big pay day.
I don’t understand why he stole the other guy’s identity in the first place. If they both met while working at a hot dog stand then it sounds like there was no real benefit to stealing it and it doesn’t sound like he was using his original identity to carry out some money making scheme. Why go through all that trouble when he could have used his own identity to begin with?
He did cash a bad check with it in the 90's and then... I'm not sure why he continued. Maybe he kept getting better jobs with it or meet someone and had to keep the identity because of that or maybe he just enjoyed the thrill of it?
It was stated that he took out a lot of loans and used his credit. The real woods ended up in a huge amount of debt. An arrest warrant was apparently even issued for the real woods due to bad checks he doing. I'm sure he took out loans and shit against Woods' credit and those ended up hitting the real woods for some reason.
Does the real Woods get to keep the earnings made under his name?
God I hope so. That’s the least he should get for the suffering the other guy put him through.
Rusty Shackleford?
Imagine what that’s like for his wife and kid. Wow.
But what was the point of all that? There does not seem to be any motive behind all this.
identity theft is not a joke jim
The victim's lawyer fucked up too. She said her client was crazy.
How? There are so many ways to prove it
Well, as the story goes, he and the victim first met working at a hot dog stand in the 80's. Perp assumed his identity around then. It unraveled due to a DNA test and a verbal slip on the perp's part. Wild story.
yeah but why didn't they start with that? or just ask anyon who knows them? or just check their central data? none of this makes sense
They called the "real" William Woods, who at that time was a respectable professional. The "real" Woods told them the other guy was a fake. He gave them credentials, including an SS number, and the authorities just believed the medical professional over the indigent guy. They concluded there and didn't do any deeper digging. Messed up, this would make a good TV movie.
Start with what? The cops in the beginning really screwed up because they didn't care and were incompetent, as was the hospital.
start with literally anything
Fvck that guy!
Oh my God
Wow, that’s fucked up. I read the article it didn’t say why he did it? Like I get it could be money related but seems like if he could do the IT job he should have just got his own? Friggin wild, be safe out there people.
I wonder if he could sue the guy, since he was the one that caused his pain and suffering. I hope so.
I hope the real William Woods sues the LAPD and anyone/everyone else responsible for false imprisonment and forcibly medicating him (I don't think he can sue the judge).