what if i dont respond to the american community survey
If you live in mod America, you must e'er be on guard against countless varieties of scam. Final week, a couple living in Bonne Terre, Missouri might accept fallen for a "demography bureau scam" – they answered questions from someone who definitely proved to be a scammer rather than a Census Bureau employee, merely thus far it's too early to tell what, if anything, the scammer volition practise with his ill-gained noesis nearly the couple.
The Demography Scam is quite uncomplicated: the scammers pose as U.S. Census Bureau workers in social club to ask sure personal questions of the intended victim. There are diverse means the scammers tin can do this: send fake surveys through the U.S. Post, set up fake websites purportedly from the real census bureau, call victims on the telephone or even knock on their door — all of which real census workers might do, as well.
So it's easy to run across why people might fall for such a scam: if you lot live in the United States or any territories thereof, there really is a Census Bureau whose workers have legal authority to ask you lot various personal questions.
In one case per decade
The standard population-counting census mentioned in the Constitution only takes identify one time per decade, in years ending in zero. Simply that doesn't mean the Census Agency takes the rest of the time off; during the non-demography years, it runs the American Community Survey, which Census.gov describes equally a "mandatory ongoing statistical survey that samples a small percentage of the population every yr -- giving communities the information they need to program investments and services."
The ACS does ask a corking many questions which would be considered "intensely personal" or even "none of your [obscenity deleted] beeswax" if a random stranger demanded such answers from you: financial questions including how much your home is worth, how large information technology is and what civilities it has; how much you pay for hire, utilities, condominium fees, insurance, real estate taxes and/or mobile abode fees (as applicable); your current and former employment status, what type of job you have, how y'all get to work and how lengthy your typical commute is; questions about your marital and armed services history as applicable; and a diverseness of others.
These American Community Survey questions are then personal, sometimes people who go 18-carat ACS forms in the mail will mistakenly think they're from a scammer. Last August, for example, columnist Melanie Payne with the News-Printing of Fort Myers, Florida, said that "[a]t least in one case every three months or and so I get an irate phone call from a reader virtually a form they received 'supposedly' from the U.Due south. Census Bureau …. [the reader] idea this grade was a scam. It isn't."
That said: the Demography Bureau volition not go and then far every bit to enquire how much money is in your bank account, how much you're paid, what time you lot leave for work each morning or when you return dwelling house at nighttime, the verbal specific road yous take, whatever business relationship numbers or passwords, and other questions whose answers might evidence useful to burglars or identity thieves.
Sounded plausible
Simply an unnamed couple in Bonne Terre, Missouri, might have answered some of these scam questions anyway. The Daily Periodical Online reported on Mon that the whole matter started when the couple got a letter in the mail, maxim that the Census Bureau wanted them to consummate a survey.
Sounds plausible, correct? The couple went along with information technology. Equally the Daily Journal Online explained:
After time passed they decided to get online through a web address listed on the papers sent through the U.S. Postal Service. Once on the site, the resident explained that her married man started to fill out the survey online, until he reached a betoken that he felt [the questions were] too personal …. Shortly after, they received a phone call ... claiming to exist from the Census Bureau. Afterward the resident explained that they didn't feel comfortable answering such personal in-depth questions, the caller began making threats toward them indicating that if they did not cooperate, they would ship out regime to arrest them and they would get prison house time for it. At that indicate, the couple cooperated … out of fear of doing jail time.
Although filling out demography forms is indeed mandatory, legitimate employees of the Demography Agency never make arrest threats over the telephone. (The aforementioned rule applies to other forms of "fake government employee scam," also. For example, people really can go to jail if they don't pay their taxes – but real IRS agents collecting back taxes do not threaten to arrest and imprison taxpayers unless they pay up that mean solar day. Any and then-called IRS amanuensis threatening y'all'll go to prison tonight unless y'all pay upwards today is a scammer.)
What to do
Here are some other things which genuine Census Bureau employees never exercise, according to guidelines posted on the Census Bureau'due south official website at Census.gov (not .com):
You may exist the victim of a scam if someone claiming to be from the Census Bureau asks you for certain data. The Census Bureau never asks for:
your full Social Security number
money or donations
annihilation on behalf of a political political party
your full banking company or credit card account numbers
your female parent'southward maiden name
If you become a telephone call, alphabetic character or in-person company purporting to exist from the Census Bureau, and you want to verify its authenticity, the Census Agency advises you lot to call the National Processing Eye (NPC) (an Authorized Partner), at ane of these numbers:
1-800-392-6975 Hagerstown, Doc
1-800-523-3205 Jeffersonville, IN
1-800-642-0469 Tucson, AZ
1-800-877-8339 TDD/TTY
The operating hours for the various NPC locations are listed online here, on the Demography Bureau'south "Contact U.s.a." page.
If yous tin can't call to verify because your "Census" worker called or visited you after NPC office hours – that alone suggests it's a scam. Existent Census Agency employees won't become aroused when you want to verify their identities before answering their questions – and real Census Agency employees won't threaten to abort you, either.
Source: https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/beware-of-scammy-census-surveys-but-dont-ignore-the-real-ones-011215.html
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