Don’t believe everything you read.

Don’t believe everything you read.

This story appeared in The Sun, the Independent, the Daily Mail, and all over the place. Part of it is genuine, the customer was notified, and had problems with his refund:

A CUSTOMER named Hussain who applied for a refund on an iPhone was refused by Apple — unless he proved he wasn’t hanged tyrant Saddam Hussein. Sharakat Hussain bought the £799 mobile for his sister last month. But he took it back to his local Apple store when she said she didn’t want it.

The 26-year-old, from Birmingham, was allegedly told that because of the large amount, he’d receive the money through a bank transfer. But after waiting weeks, he still hadn’t received the money.

Eventually, he received an email from the tech giant and was stunned when they allegedly asked him to prove he was not the deceased Iraqi dictator.

He was then told by an admin worker that due to his surname, he could be on a Government’s Denied Parties list, which meant he wasn’t allowed to be sold an iPhone.
Saddam Hussein was hanged in Iraq in 2006, but for some reason, staff at Apple still managed to mix the two up.
The process was triggered by a requirement to check large refunds against the international sanctions list but a human error resulted in Mr Hussain being mistaken for the former president of Iraq.

Now let’s examine the story in more depth. International sanction checklists have hundreds of names on them, and most companies in finance as part of anti-money laundering procedures, have to check them against their clients.

To check, fuzzy logic is often used so sound-likes or near misses can be picked up. But let us supposed the clerk mistook “Sharakat” for “Saddam”. Here are just four instances – there are more, on the “Consolidated United Nations Security Council Sanctions List” of October 2015.

IQi.059 Name: 1: HALA 2: SADDAM 3: HUSSEIN 4: AL-TIKRITI
Name (original script): حلا صدام حسين التكريتي
Title: na Designation: na DOB: 1972 POB: Iraq Good quality a.k.a.: na Low quality a.k.a.: na Nationality: Iraq Passport no.: na National identification no.: na Address: Listed on: 7 Apr. 2004 Other information:

Qi.057 Name: 1: RAGHAD 2: SADDAM 3: HUSSEIN 4: AL-TIKRITI
Name (original script): رغد صدام حسين التكريتي
Title: na Designation: na DOB: 1967 POB: Iraq Good quality a.k.a.: na Low quality a.k.a.: na Nationality: Iraq Passport no.: na National identification no.: na Address: Amman, Jordan Listed on: 7 Apr. 2004

IQi.058 Name: 1: RANA 2: SADDAM 3: HUSSEIN 4: AL-TIKRITI
Name (original script): رنا صدام حسين التكريتي
Title: na Designation: na DOB: 1969 POB: Iraq Good quality a.k.a.: na Low quality a.k.a.: na Nationality: Iraq Passport no.: na National identification no.: na Address: Amman, Jordan Listed on: 7 Apr. 2004

IQi.001 Name: 1: SADDAM 2: HUSSEIN 3: AL-TIKRITI 4:
Name (original script): صدام حسين التكريتي
Title: na Designation: na DOB: 28 Apr. 1937 POB: al-Awja, near Tikrit, Iraq Good quality a.k.a.: na Low quality a.k.a.: Abu Ali Nationality: Iraq Passport no.: na National identification no.: na Address: Listed on: 27 Jun. 2003

IQi.061 Name: 1: ALI 2: SADDAM 3: HUSSEIN 4: AL-TIKRITI
Name (original script): علي صدام حسين التكريتي
Title: na Designation: na DOB: a) 1980 b) 1983 POB: Iraq Good quality a.k.a.: na Low quality a.k.a.: Hassan Nationality: Iraq Passport no.: na National identification no.: na Address: Listed on: 7 Apr. 2004

It can be seen that there is not just the late dictator who is on this list and therefore could be on a “a Government’s Denied Parties”, but at least half a dozen of other people with both the names Saddam and Hussein in common with him on sanctions checklists.

Value Walk, commenting on this, says that this is how the story first appears:

“I thought the email was spam, I was stunned to learn it was real. I was furious to be linked to Saddam,” Sharakat told British newspaper The Sun.

The Sun, thinking like Sharakat that there could only be one Saddam Hussein, ran with a preposterous story. And Value Walk buys into this when they commented:

“However you have to wonder how often the list is updated, seeing as the former dictator has been dead for a decade. Perhaps the strangest part of the whole story is that the email Hussain received from Apple contained a box which read: “I am not Saddam Hussein.””

But as we have seen, the name is common to several individuals still living who might have been seen as a near match using soundex type fuzzy logic to make identifications.

So it is doubtful whether it had anything to do with the Dictator of Iran, Saddam Hussein, who is not on the current list at all, but everything to do with the Sun’s inability to check how the process of identification in the checklist actually worked.

LinkedIn tells me that there are 11 top profiles on its database for someone called.... Rupert Murdoch, ranging from the news media magnate to a janitor and a florist! There are people in the world with the same or similar names to most of us.