Legal Question in Consumer Law in Virginia

Using birth certificate for identity purposes

Three and half years ago, my husband and I bought a car at a local dealership. As part of the deal, we were given a cash rewards certificate that we could redeem in 39 months for $2,000.00. It is now time to redeem the certificate however, one of the required stipulations is that we send a certified copy with a raised seal of our birth certificate for identification purposes. We want to get our money but we are very wary of sending a birth certificate to a Third Party Administrator that we do not know. This seems like such an invasion of privacy and risk of identity theft since our social security numbers are on some of the paperwork that is also required. How can we protect ourselves and still legally get our money?


Asked on 3/01/07, 10:20 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Michael Hendrickson Law Office Michael E. Hendrickson

Re: Using birth certificate for identity purposes

You should be able to redact(means edit out)or obscure the SS numbers, and a mere copy of your birth certificate should really present no problems in terms of an unwarranted invasion of your privacy or risk of identity theft. (At least in my view.)

You may wish, nevertheless, to consider contacting this third party administrator to see whether some of these stipulations could either be modified or eliminated.

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Answered on 3/01/07, 11:06 am


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