The Massachusetts Sec. of the Commonwealth,Bill Galvin, refuses to shut down his UCC search site, so we are going to give a step by step primer on how to use his site where he is printing records like this one for a Mass. State Senator and his wife. 

The Virginia Watchdog's founder, BJ Ostergren, called Sec. Galvin's office several times last week and asked him to break the links to the images of the UCC/financing statement documents.  She never got a return phone call from him personally like she requested, but thru his employees, he flat out refused to break the links to SSNs or protect the citizens of Mass and other surrounding states where people live who have UCCs filed on them in Massachusetts.

There are literally thousands of Social security numbers on his site like the two on the Senator's record and sometimes they are embedded on the bottom line also - esp. on the John Deere filings.

Since Mr. Galvin has made his position clear and since he apparently wants to continue to spoon feed criminals then here's how to navigate the UCC search site which link is also found by going to his main page and clicking on Corporations Division in the center of the page and then on the next page, click on Search the UCC database which will take you to the UCC SEARCH page where there is a veritable treasure trove of SSNs on records between mid 2001 thru 2005.

On the UCC SEARCH page, a search can be done in two ways - by DEBTOR... or by SECURED PARTY.  Debtor(s) is/are the ones like the Senator and wife named in that record above and the Secured Party is the one who put the SSNs on the record above (United Co-operative Bank) and who want to make sure their interest is protected in whatever the Debtor bought/financed or used for collateral on a loan.

MATCO TOOLS was a big one who put SSNs on initial/original UCC-1 filings (not continuations or terminations filings) from 2001 thru 2005 like John Deere and others did.   So just look for UCC-1.

On the UCC search page, click at the bottom so that only a check mark shows next to "secured party".  Remove the check marks from Debtor and Assignees since we only want to see Matco Tools records as "secured parties".   Then select 150 in that pull down menu where it says DISPLAY NAMES PER PAGE above the Search icon.

Then go back up the search page and click on the circle next to SEARCH by ORGANIZATION.   Type in MATCO TOOLS.  (NOTE: When the search results come up, make sure you have cookies enabled and pop up blockers turned off.  You will not be able to open the PDF files otherwise.)

Don't bother with any records prior to 2001.  Click on the file number when you see 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, or 2005 as the first four numbers of the FILE number .  The first one to click on is for one JOHN  LYNCH.  When the next page comes up about him and his record, click on the pdf file number over at top right and the document will come up if you have your blockers turned off.  If you get a notice that access is denied, disable your cookie blockers and pop up blockers.

Once you get the gist of this, you can go on down the search results page to the next filing done in the 2000s and open it.  Everyone will have a SSN on them. 

IF you use SNAP ON as your SECURED PARTY and follow the same procedures outlined above and pull them up in groups of 150 per page, then you have to scroll forward to page 12 of 129 (since there are 19,271 records) to get to the file numbers for UCC-1 filings with a file number that begins with 2001.  The form will look different, but SSNs are at the top right and THIS IS WHAT GALVIN DOESN'T WANT TO PROTECT!!! 

He refuses to break the links to the IMAGES of those UCC-1 filings where the majority of the SSNs are found.

But IF you want to search by "individual" just click on the little circle by that on the SEARCH PAGE and enter a person's name.  Just a last name will do.  Only open records between 2001 and 2005 and the SSNs are there by the thousands.

This should prove that the Secretary's site is a veritable treasure trove of SSNs.  He said it wasn't. 

He is spoon feeding criminals thousands of SSNS with this site and needs to break the links to the images of the records then IF ANYONE WANTS A COPY, THEY SHOULD HAVE TO CALL HIS OFFICE AND PAY $25 FOR A SEARCH OR SEND IN A WRITTEN REQUEST.  That way his office could make money selling the records and wouldn't have to pay for redaction (blacking out SSNs which they can't do on the original records anyway).

Also there was a quote in this AP article printed in the BOSTON GLOBE and other papers where it says the REGISTERS OF DEEDS have removed SSNs.  

NOT SO! 

The Virginia Watchdog's founder went into two sites last night (www.salemdeeds.com) and www.norfolkdeeds.org and found records with SSNs on them.  Copies were sent to the AP and also to the man making the statement to prove that even Mass Registers of Deeds are spoon feeding criminals.   The SSNs on the Salem deeds site were on mortgages from the 90s and the SSNs on the Norfolk site were on Federal tax liens.

 

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