I just received an email from a fellow B&R reader.
Bob,
My mom died January 13, 2011 and I’m concerned about what I found on line thru Spokeo.com. She was a white female in her mid 80′s when she died and voted Republican all her life. Now that she has passed according to Spokeo.com she is an African-American and registered Democrat. She resides in 4 different locations and 4 different districts too. Her name was Geneva Evans, she died in a nursing home here in Wheeling, WV.
I wonder if this is why Democrats are so concerned about black people and voting?
If anyone out there knows of how this lady’s mother can have her name cleared, please let us know. It’s not like we can depend on the Attorney General to clear this up….
With this being an election year, and a critical one at that, I don’t doubt that there are sleazeballs out there “harvesting” names from the obituary columns and “registering voters”.
I’ve never heard of Spokeo. I ran my name and a few others through it… that’s a bit too creepy for me!
Though I got a laugh when my current residence showed up with a “$1,000k” property value… yeah.that. DAMN! I WANT TO SELL NOW!!!!!! That’d be like hitting the lotto… and about as likely.
I’m sorry to see that on top of the loss that this person feels, now there’s fraud piling on top of it. That’s the leftist way. I bet there are some ACORNy people responsible for that. But I would let the local authorities know. I’d also be talking to an estate lawyer. Though I hope I’m being pessimistic here, there might be some attempt to insert a claim against the estate by some ne’er-do-well, even if it just shows as an outstanding “video rental and fees” sort of thing.
My condolences for your loss, I hope that you can close her affairs efficiently and thoroughly, without undue upset.
I’m married to an Filipino woman and I have found most of my asian inlaws are listed as African American Democrats on Spokeo.
At my mother’s home, a Progressive and her loving team showed up and lectured all the not with-its and then proceeded to register them to vote and had them fill in absentee ballots. To remove your mother’s name, take (mail) a copy of the death certificate to the applicable county clerk’s offices in WV and ask for the name to be removed as deceased and ask for confirmation. In my case (not in WV), I told them my mother did not sign knowingly the registration nor the absentee ballot and both were removed and I presented a sworn statement signed by my mother to that effect. A death certificate requires that the name be removed from the voter rolls permanently.
“By [WV] law, the clerk’s office cannot purge deceased registered voters from the rolls without the person’s estate being processed through the clerk’s office, a published obituary or a death certificate.“
What a cruel maneuver to add insult to a grieving family. I hope this person can get their mother’s name cleared in a timely manner. When my father passed the funeral home recommended we get ten copies of his death certificate.Glad we listened. Everyone required a copy of the death certificate.
Thats some considerably screwed up software…it listed my house as worth $200K and my wife’s house at the same address at $400k….does it not know that I have done all the freakin work around here? Seriously though that is some scary code.
You’re right about screwed-up software, it shows residences from 10 years ago, wrong physical location, wrong household. I like it that way, the SWAT team is sure gonna have a hard time finding me!
I see this got a mention on another blog. Nice job.
@BRFan, Where else did you see this story?
http://therealrevo.com/blog/?p=64940
I discovered my info on spokeo (a year ago or more), and was surprised at the info they had on me and my husband, and then it started looking familiar, and I remembered filling out a few things like warranty cards, in which it asked me for my other interests. At the time I filled them out, I thought they were just internal market research, to help identify which demographic groups had which interests and bought which products — you know, info that would help the company come up with better products and/or more targeted ad campaigns or what-have-you. Now I know that they sold the info to spokeo (or some other organization who passed it on to them), and they just listed what I told them. My brother did that, but wasn’t about to give real info, so said he had a million-dollar house or his annual income was a million dollars, so that’s how spokeo listed it.
Whenever I go shopping at Home Depot, they (and others) usually have a “drawing” or somesuch at the bottom of the receipt to “register to win” something or other. Never, never, NEVER fill them out, the only ones who win are the companies that take this information and sell it to others, which then sell it to others, which then datamine and sell THAT to others, which…
Keep your personal information personal, don’t be so free to give it out!