Northwestel Inc. customer service staff do not ask for social insurance numbers, a company spokeswoman said today.

Sunny Patch confirmed the company has received two complaints recently from customers who called the 1-888 number and were asked to provide their "social security” number.

Northwestel has contacted its 1-800 provider to inform them of the complaints, she said.

Patch said it could have been a technical glitch which accidentially redirected the Northwestel call to a 1-800 U.S. company which does require social security numbers to do business.

In addition to the two complaints, she noted, a local customer service representative did call up Northwestel's 1-888 line and he too was asked for his social security number.

Patch pointed out social security numbers in the U.S. are the same as social insurance numbers in Canada.

"I would really like to stress to our customers if they do not hear the Northwestel greeting, they should hang up and call again,” she said. "We do not ask for social insurance numbers.”

This week, a local resident told the Star about her experience on Wednesday morning when she called 1-888-423-2333 to pay her bill and was asked for her social insurance number.

At first, she said, she thought she had a computer voice until she expressed her surprise at the question, when the operator changed his tone and requested just the last three numbers of her social insurance number.

She hung up, checked her redial to see she had dialed correctly, then redialed. She immediately told the customer service agent about what had just happened and he immediately relayed how the same thing had happened to him, but he'd just thought he'd dialed the wrong number. He promised to report the matter as soon as they were done, she said.

The local woman, who wants to remain anonymous, said she was left wondering – and concerned – that there might be a new twist afoot in the world of identity theft.

"It's one thing to steal your identity through the convential means,” she said, referring to mail and e-mails filled with promises of wealth in exchange for credit card or social insurance numbers. "But to intercept a phone call?”

Patch said Northwestel encourages customers who experience the same situation to let the company know.