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Shady as fuck...last 4 digits of SS can be used to unlock some accounts

They were up to something. It's so easy to give up info when you're not thinking about it.

Extremely sus

This is why I just don't talk to people I don't know in public. It may make me look like an ass but I'd rather that then end up in an uncomfortable situation like this.

Yea well OP was at a bar, a social hub.

These guys were definitely worthy of suspicion. Your gut serves you well.

I know you're supposed to be social at a bar, but even then I've just had way too many uncomfortable encounters with people.

Is it a 3?

Doesn't mean you have to engage in unwanted conversation. I've spent many a night in a bar sitting at a lone table or end of the bar nursing a depressing moment. I liked being there because I wasn't alone even though I was. I would have definitely come across as an asshole if anyone had tried to start an unwanted discussion.

>They start with asking me which one I think is the asshole.

Correct answer: both!

You should have swapped seats with the first guy, and suggested that there were a number of people into guessing games that evening and it probably made sense for them to play with themselves.

Okay, alright, pun intended.

But they only said the last number

Last 4 digits + first name + birthday (that was next) can go a long way to identifying a person.

Obviously bizarre behavior, but I don't think it was an attempt to scam you. I think it was just a couple of guys trying to have fun playing a bar game at your expense.

Why even engage them in the first place though?

There's not much you can do with just the last digit though.

People do talk to strangers still. Theres nothing wrong with talking to people.

Yeah but would they have stopped there if OP kept playing?

This is very interesting. Im not certain it is what you think it was buuuut it was very strange and hacking in the wild certainly could happen, just not sure if it's worth the time for random people - did they get your last name? The airline you flew on as well? Hmm, definitely interesting.

And place of birth too, I believe.

I don’t know if it was a grift, but it sure sounds like boundary testing to me. Like, if you’re willing to give up the last number of your SS number (because it’s “no big deal”), then what else are you willing to share? And eventually, that could indeed stack up to enough information that it could be compromising, or it could be totally benign, but it’s an odd enough question that it stands out. Why didn’t they ask about your phone number or your favorite number? Those feel more like getting to know you questions than your SS number. ETA: I meant to say, you were very wise to trust your instincts. I’m just mentioning the “boundary testing” for people who may be unfamiliar with the concept or who, unlike OP, may have been inclined to not listen to their gut out of politeness.

Personally, I would leave once I started to feel uncomfortable by the questions.

definitely

Ears pierced they’re hoping for a birthday date, PII

Last flight looking for a hometown, extrapolating an address from public records not that bad if they’ve got your full name.

SSN, cmon now.

Maybe just a couple guys having fun, but they sure were intent on gathering as much PII as possible in the quickest way.

Also if I’m hitting on a girl at a bar there’s just no way I take this approach but I could see a couple goobers thinking this was a good idea

Sounds like that’s what OP did

Did they have Russian accents?

If someone wants to figure out the last 4 digits of your SSN randomly.

All 4 digits unknown = 10,000 combinations

Last digit known, 3 digits unknown = 1000 combinations

The last 4 digits used to be assigned in order - so if they know your birthdate they could make some assumptions about the beginning numbers as well.

(*edited to correct numbers...)

How do you meet new people or make friends? Why go to a bar?

Or even if not, there are 10,000 combos of 0-9 for a 4 digits code like the last 4 of your SSN where if they already have the last digit, the number of combos for just a 3 digit code drops to 1000 if they were to try to brute force it. Significantly easier. Not sure that's what they were going for exactly, but it's a possibility.

Place of birth is usually the first 3 digits of your SSN and birthday can get you close with the second 2 because there is an order that they were issued. So if you have DoB, Birthplace, and the last 4 digits, you can guess someone's SSN in a few tries.

Considering one of their questions was where OP was from, that's a strong possibility. If you know someone's birth city, that gives the first three digits.

Where are those numbers from? Is there any reason it’s not 10,000 and 1000, so given 10 digits for each slot, 10x10x10(x10)?

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I think I would have just started lying

Extremely suspicious. I wouldn't have trusted them, and you should never give out any part of your SSN to anyone.

Unrelated, but it must be your mom's birthday coming up! Is she still married? I bet she had a nice maiden name... is it Ellison? Hoffman? I bet I'm close!

"Stranger danger! I don't know you!"

"haha now let's all guess what the name of your first pet was!"

😲 geeze, I could have been totally f'd if I continued playing their game. Who would have thought it could be so easy to guess your social.

Depending on what year they were born. They made it random in 2011. But since OP was drinking I hope she was born prior to that.

And to further reduce the search space, while SSNs don't have a checksum they do have "strong formatting" which means certain combinations of numbers are invalid. If you're down to just 2 digits (100 guesses) and apply those rules, you've pretty much got the number.

No they didn't. They had American accents. I had never seen them out before. I mean people who go to Hanks also go to jvs. It's mostly the same people you see all the time.

Do scary. Normally I'd Hank Deattles you know all the regulars. It's the same people you see at other shows like JVS. I've never seen these people before.

Gulp!

Your might be right but if the guy trying to buy me free drinks was involved then I'm sure it would be no effort for a drunk person to answer any of their questions without even thinking.

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They were trying a hookup spell from Andrew Tate, you almost fell for it!

Recording the conversation. Then they playback the information they got and just write it down, applying for credit online with your info, usually.

They probably do this all night, every night. Either the place you were drinking is in on the grift, or one of the staff is.

People don't realize how persistent scammers are. It's their job. All they need is for 1 person to fall for it every evening, and they've made more in a couple hours work than most of us do in a week.

When you stop playing they'll just move on to the next mark. And the next. And the next.

SSN was never designed to be used like it is now as a pseudo ID. We really need a national ID act with stronger inherent protections to replace the identity theft crises of a failure our current system enables.

But that gets one side complaining about government overreach (the government wants to control you!!) and the other side saying it will be used for voter suppression. So we will continue with this shit system…

Alternative possibility, some trainees for three letter agencies / military programs have to go out and track a random person for a number of hours and/or collect info on them. Could have been malicious, that would be my guess, but also could have also been three guys who failed their assignment.

Scammers or low energy spys.

If you're a cleared individual this may be something to report to your FSO

Not sure that’s true. My brother and I have the same first three but we’re born in different states.

I get it. I’ve occasionally gone to a bar because I don’t want to be alone, but I really have no intention of talking to anyone.

OP didn’t answer. Definitely a 3.

Or if the free drink was drugged… good you didn’t accept the drink. I got dosed once - by someone I know, no less - and it was a very unpleasant experience. But you could be rather suggestible and not able to recall details of any conversation.

Not true at all.

My birthplace is Washington DC and my SSN starts with 325 and not WDC.

My birthday is 2/21 but my second 2 digits are 45.

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they may as well ask you to think of a number 0-9 and guess that. On the other hand, if you want to play along, you're not obligated to tell them the truth about anything at all. My name is Luigi, the last digit of my ss # is the letter D, I'm from Antartica. They'd probably leave you alone.

On a side note they didn't ask for the last 4 digits of your ss#, according to your post, so I have no idea why everyone is saying oh yeah they could do a lot with that, as they didnt ask for it.

But your last 4 digits are based on your mother's maiden name, right?

Either a grift or a distraction technique to drug and sexually assault you.

Glad you’re safe!

That would be Harper, but again, my last four is 6528.

Thanks.

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Thinking back to all of the insanely stupid shit my friends and I did at bars during college, it's weird that so many of you immediately jump to fucking identity theft. Or that it's a military training program? Go outside people.

It's a bar and they were drunk and probably trying to be stupid/funny or chose a really dumb way to try and hook up. Reading all these comments, apparently even offering someone a drink in a bar must = you are drugging it.

https://www.ssa.gov/employer/randomization.html

Thankfully SSA has realized that system was a significant security risk and has moved to a randomized system (although most people will still have the old setup).

You have no fucking idea if this is true.

Telling people to be vigilant is a big DUH, but you're authoritatively telling someone they just narrowly avoided being sexually assaulted or having their identity stolen and you have absolutely no idea if that is true.

Update- I forgot to mention when I asked for their names after they refused to give me real names. They made up these names ´Jim and T-bone´. I stated ¨Those are not your real names¨ I did make sure to take photos of everyone I think was involved.

That’s not what I did at all but okay. Have the day you deserve love!

Hold up. Not trying to pass judgement. What is the grift?

Being DC if you have a clearance I’d mention this to someone other than Reddit. It may not have been random

Tell us more! What are the first 9 digits of your SSN. Then tell us the numbers on the back of your plastic money cards in your velcro card holder

LOLLL

Sounds fishy. They also could have been trying to distract you while the first guy put something in your drink...

Bars are filled with a plethora of drunkards willing to offer lots of info. If done right you could get all your information in less than an hours time then trying to search the internet, silk road etc. for information. Not every criminal knows how to hack and go to the dark corners of the web, nor has the money to buy that info. This is an old grift and I think it still stands today.

Could be.

From someone who was legitimately drugged and raped, thanks.

GHB leaves your system pretty quickly. You’d have to get tested within 12 hours of it being ingested, and given the low rates of reporting rape…

Edit to add: https://americanaddictioncenters.org/ghb-abused/how-long-in-system

> Most standard drug tests do not test for the presence of GHB in your system, and few people test positive for GHB, even when they have used it. Nonetheless, urine, blood, saliva, and hair tests have been developed to test for GHB. The below are detection times by body system:

>Urine tests are noninvasive and relatively affordable ways to test for GHB use. The detection window is short, however, only being able to detect a small amount of GHB in urine up to 12 hours after last use.

>Blood tests, while invasive, are the most common way to test for GHB use because they are highly accurate. Blood tests will only detect GHB use for up to eight hours after last use.

>Saliva tests are often used as a secondary test to confirm the accuracy of a urine test. Inexpensive and noninvasive, saliva tests are convenient ways to confirm GHB use for up to six hours after last use.

>Hair tests are less accurate than the other forms of drug testing for GHB, but they offer a much longer detection window of up to one month. Hair tests can be useful for testing victims of GHB-aided sexual assault who were unable to get one of the previous forms of drug tests conducted in time.

>In general, GHB is difficult to detect on drug tests because of the short detection windows and lack of accuracy of it showing up on each type test. In situations of overdose, medical professionals are often unaware that GHB has been ingested and don’t even think to test for it, as the use of other drugs that were also consumed, such as alcohol, is usually more obvious.

Thanks for info.

The grift is scamming you to get personal information for potentially committing fraud. In this case the grift was a drinking game in which who ever gets closest the right answer has to drink. Hoping after they give their answers you will then give yours. (the right answer being all your personal info, D.O.B, age, social, ethnicity, birth place)

Uh, I'm not sure how you are getting confused because your original post was two sentences, the first of which says that this was a grift or a distraction technique to drug and sexually assault OP.

Yeah I can read and yet at no point did I “authoritatively” tell anyone anything. Nor did I mention anything about an identity being stolen. I gave my opinion on the scenario presented. Ya know as is common on public forums like Reddit.

Perhaps it’s you who is confused that words have meanings and you can’t just make up what someone said. It’s hella weird how some of you come on here just to read to be mad rather than comprehend what’s actually being said. Second person like that I’ve run into today. It’s also extremely interesting that you somehow skipped the few hundred posts before mine that actually do mention the possibility of someone trying to get PII from her to come to my comment. Bless your heart but go die mad somewhere else. I said what I said based on my own experiences professionally and as a woman and I’m not changing it cause your knickers are in a bunch. Have the day you deserve love!

Lying your ass off is always an option.

My mother's SSN got totally messed up b/c they gave her a duplicate number when she was born. it had the incorrect geographical identifier for where she was born, which should have been a hint to the particular IRS employee who handled it (this was way before the process was automated). It took her U.S. Senator's office to liaise w/ Social Security to disambiguate her employment history from the other person's & get a new SSN issued. It took years.

Very interesting. I've never heard of this type of phishing type interaction! Thank you!

In fact, originally it was specifically stated it was not to be used as an ID. No ref handy.

In the OP's case, it's easy to mess with a crew like this by giving made-up answers (or not continuing the conversation, of course). There's certainly/obviously no law or regulation requiring truthfull answers in bars.

This has to be one of the slowest cons ever, though. How much time did they spend with her?

I would certainly wonder if they had devices that scanned your cards and phone.

Report it to the police and save others….

Wow, that’s crazy.

Why do you think I'm mad?

You are being purposefully obtuse, and please stop with the weird folksy stuff unless you are 80. I am from Missouri and no one talks like that.

You’re the only one being obtuse here. Not sure whether it’s on purpose or just your nature. I’m originally from FL and I don’t give a shit.

not place of birth, but place of issuance of the first card.

My first thought is they had an accomplice behind the bar or otherwise working for the establishment. If your credit card is down as a tab, it might be copied or scanned.

FWIW I think it's where you were when you applied for the SSN. Because I ended up with the DC SSN because that's where I was when I turned 12 or 13, but I was born somewhere else in the US.

So maybe you and your brother were living in the same place when your SSNs were applied for?

Yup. The accomplice employee has your credit card number if you used it.

Just need to fill in the extra blanks.

IRS doesn't deal with SSNs, that's the social security administration (SSA).

That said, that's rough for your mom. My issue with mine wound up being amusing and simple to fix rather than an enormous pain. Apparently when mine was issued it was marked as female (I'm male and was born as such) which triggered some fraud alerts when I started my first job. For me the fix was a simple trip to my local SSA office and saying "I'm male" but I've heard plenty of frustrating stories trying to sort out different issues.

I would´t even know what to say. On the off chance these people are innocent I´m gonna look like a KAREN. I not sure the police would even be interested on the idea/chance these people were up to no good.

then maybe report it to the bar manager

That´s something i could do.

Oh man. What if your right. Some one recommended to speak to the establishment/bartender to see if this has happened before, but what if they are all in on it!?

Maybe recording you to use info on an automated system connected to an account? Like bank, PayPal, etc

No, that’s not being a Karen. A Karen is a person who doesn’t mind their business, harasses ppl who aren’t doing anything wrong, and feels that it is their duty to police others who aren’t doing anything wrong.

In this case something odd happened to you and your intuition is telling you that the ppl you encountered may have tried to scam you. Let somebody know, like the police. Go down to the police station, file a report and release the pics so the police will have it on their radar.

You're correct - order matters, so it would be 10,000 for 4 digits, 1000 for 3 digits.

My original numbers were based on order not mattering...

https://www.statskingdom.com/combinations-calculator.html

She should have had them guess the last four all at once. That would have meant at least a few thousand drinks.

so the honorable thing to do, short of turning to law enforcement who won't do crap, is stalling them all night while giving them bogus answers

None of those things are worth anything except for social

Contact the establishment but don’t give any info but your name!

This is Hank Dietle's Tavern in "North Bethesda"? My uncle knows the owner; I can pass this post on to him.

Wonder if they also had an RFID reader near you to collect some data?

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Thats my purse!

Now if they asked for your winning lottery numbers then please share here also. LOL

You said you turned away from the two sketch guys back to the bar. Was your purse ever out of your sight?

lol

I'd stop by the police station and file a report, OP. I think the PP who offered to send the post to the owner of the bar should probably do that, they can look at surveillance tapes, etc, if interested. I'd do it soon, tapes get recorded over. And if you have a clearance, mention this to higher ups. Glad you were safe, sounds very sketchy.

Part of me feels like this was a couple of DC cybersecurity consultant bros trying to prove how much smarter they are than the masses

Yup. Give them all the answers they want, making up random shit all night long.

Probably should avoid drinking anything they give you, though. Forgot to mention that to OP.

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Don't worry - they've already got all the rest!

Did you at any point get asked to provide an email address by anyone at the place before interacting with those guys or by the guys themselves?

Yeah that place is shady as fuck. Always struck me as a right-wing hangout. I went in with my Asian-American friend and it got weirdly quiet. Find a decent place to drink.

A grift ? What are you 85 years old ? Probably not unless you look that gullible . Sounds like a joke.

I’d just make stuff up and let them guess that

They can easily be obtained without talking to you, and there's absolutely no guarantee they will be related to your security questions.

Give fake info. And say no thank for the free drink and tell them I’m wrapping up my own drink & paying my tab.

I bet you think we couldn't guess the name of your third grade teacher

Ears pierced is a security question? Last flight you took? Come on. If it’s first car, elementary school, that’s one thing. These guys were just playing a drinking game. Lie to them. Ignore them. Who cares. But nobody was in danger here.

Real identity thieves don’t go through elaborate crap like this, they buy your stuff on the dark web.

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Indeed

I agree, this situation was harmless. Probably very annoying, but harmless.

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Dude if you work for government there’s a real chance you were targeted for this

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Just because we're in modern day times with modern technology doesn't mean an old-fashioned grip can't take place if it works why not stick to it.

I went there for the band the band was great " MF Grumbles" they're like early Black keys and white stripes just like dirty and a good way.

No I did not. The venue has a mailing list but I'm not a part of it.

No, also being nervous I made sure to flip my purse over to the other side so it cannot be open from the outside.

Only time I had something similar to this I got a release request via email because it was part of a reality show.

Who knows.

Smart thinking! Sorry this happened to you.

You first came on this sub asking whether it was a grift or not. Now you seem to be an expert on this matter and telling us it happened.

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Go look up crimes in DC reported by DC MPD related to PII. I know DC bar/restaurant owners, DC MPD and DC crimes pretty well and nothing of this sort ever happens. Every bar/restaurant is equipped with video cameras and required to provide video to DC MPD. You were most likely, as I noted before, being fucked around with.

Go ahead and file a police report if you really believe it (Honestly, do it if you 100% believe it...you have every right and the sooner you report, the more likely they will get video). And post any other examples of this alleged scam happening. I will guarantee the police officer/detective will laugh in your face. My first response was upvoted by many as it is true.

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Also, credit card companies/banks/etc now have such good anomaly detection alert reporting that they would probably get denied the first purchase they make.

But go ahead and file the report. I hope I'm wrong.

I've known these two for 20+ years. Both in their mid-50s, one with dark hair (maybe a pompadour depending on the night), and one bald with white hair -- right?

It's not a scam, just a drinking/social lubrication game that they've been playing some version of for decades. They're nice, friendly guys. Promise.

The typical questions are last digit of social security (precisely because it's mostly random, unlike the first number), age ears were pierced, last time you got a haircut, what time you woke up, number of siblings ("no halves or steps"), last time you were on an airplane, age of your first "real" or "intimate" kiss, age you first started driving, etc.

If no one will play the game with them, they'll move on to the bartender or just play rock/paper/scissors among themselves.

tl;dr: hoofbeats, horses, zebras.

One of these guys (the one with the dark hair) is a regular at JVs, or used to be. And he goes to Hanks whenever a friend's band is playing.

I know these guys. You misheard them -- it's Ken and T-Bone. T-Bone is a nickname, but it's what everyone calls him and is basically his real name.

SSA, when I was growing up wasn't an independent agency, but I was wrong on its parent agency, which was Dept. of Health & Human Services. Today I learned it b/c an independent agency in 1994.

Ah, interesting. TIL it wasn't always an independent agency, I'm young enough that all my interactions were with it as an independent one (I didn't deal with them much as an elementary schooler lol).

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