BP Loses Laptop With Oil-Spill Claimants' Personal Info 137
Oxford_Comma_Lover writes "CNN Reports that BP lost a laptop with the name, address, DOB, and SSNs of everyone who filed claims related to the big oil spill last year. In other words, everyone asking for money from them based on the spill just got their private info misplaced. There has been no allegation of bad faith."
Bad Faith... (Score:5, Interesting)
Any sufficiently big level of stupidity is indistinguishable from malice :)
Actually it is better for you to assume malice than stupidity, because if you go after a fool, he kinda sorta deserved it anyway, if you think a malicious enemy is stupid, you are gonna pay twice for being fool yourself. Game theory in action. :)
speaking of BP... (Score:4, Interesting)
There hasn't been much coverage lately of how the independent engineering team decided the blowout prevention valve's malfunction was to blame and not some active corporate malfeasance after all. On the other hand, there also hasn't been much coverage of how BP owns a lot of the oil facilities in Libya that the US military is now busy defending.
Re:SSN? (Score:4, Interesting)
For a lost income claim, the money is taxable (just as the income it is supposed to be replacing would be).
The problem is tax evasion. There's a million "bubba gump shrimp boats" down there, that "on paper" never make more than a couple K of taxable income per year. But under the table they were absolutely raking it in. Cash sales to restaurants. Cash sales at the pier to brokers. Cash sales to general public and/or local fisherman whom happen to be at the pier. The only guy in LA with more cash than a dealer is a fishing boat owner. Now with the spill, there is a huge dilemma of how much money they should get from B.P., what they actually made, or what they reported to the IRS.
I'm told by relatives in LA that the IRS takes people down because they are so dumb that they buy diesel for their boat on a credit card, so its easily tracked, and they spend more money JUST ON DIESEL than they report as gross income to the IRS. Theres a whole folklore as to which marina cooperates with the feds and which marinas take cash for fuel, and how its better to buy diesel at a "gas" station for cash, pay the diesel road tax, and pour it into your boat, than to get busted, apparently offroad has a dye added so you can't burn it onroad, and boat owners buy the dye to make it look like they're burning marina diesel instead of truck diesel.
That gives some idea of how bad the tax evasion is down there. I would not be surprised if this is all a show, and the laptop mysteriously is found in the local IRS office.