Recently I stumbled across a site talking about how to “lose yourself” and create a new identity. They of course said to get a new ss# by going to the office.
How can someone (say like me 35yo) go into the office and say he’s never had one. Won’t they do some investigation of some sort.
Not that I’m want to lose myself. I just thought the advice was wrong for a person looking to disapear.
Hrm. Not sure that it is very easy to do that. They’d probably demand a birth certificate.
Of course that leads to the new identity option that I had always heard-- get a copy of a birth certificate for someone who died shortly after birth.
Most states have wised up to the birth certificate gambit. You usually cannot get a birth certificate unless you are: 1) the person named on it or 2) one of the parents of the person on the certificate.
This leads to some strange argument when it comes to trying to obtain one’s own birth certificate if you have lost every bit of ID you have.
Not all states have this policy yet.
I was able to get my own birth certificate through the mail from Ohio with just basic personal information that would be on the certificate (like name, birthdate, father’s name, mother’s maiden name).
If they had a database of death certificates, they could have checked to make sure that I am a living person. I don’t know if such a database exists. Actually I’d be pretty impressed if it does.
I suppose that you might want to start by researching infant/child deaths in a state with high immigration in the targeted birth years (around, but not necessarily, your own). That would give you a better chance of finding a deceased who died young, but possibly not in their state of birth. And you would want that state to not be too picky about who gets a birth certificate. It’s been about 10 years, but I got one for a friend here in Texas without much question.
I still can’t help wondering about the question Mark poses. If you’re 35 or so, what kind of story do you cook up for why you’ve never had an SS# as of yet?
Perhaps it would be better to snag the identity of a deceased who lived long enough to have an SS# already, and adopt that.
Here’s another option:
Just search the web, say, www.whowhere.com for your name. Should get a lot of people with your name. Note their state, apply for a birth certificate, when you get that, call SS
and ask for your card.
Fun being yourself & not being yourself at the same time, eh?
SS keeps a dead number list. So if a baby died with a SS# it would show up as dead. You would need a new number
Ah for the days in the 70s when you could walk in to any SS office and get a number. Could you imagine if you were smart enuff to get about 100 numbers. You could sell them for a fortune.
But anywho, the jist of the site was that they HAVE to give you a SS# and it isn’t their business. I don’t buy it though.
Does the SSA recycle numbers? I’m 6-11 years younger than my siblings, yet the first three digits of my number are 2 less than my siblings’.
So, do I have a dead guy’s number, or are the numbers pseudorandomly assigned?
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All the world’s indeed a stage/And we are merely players - Rush
I think Arken’s is the simplest method to getting a new identity. Try it out and let us know how it works.
Jeffery
Are social security numbers recycled? What do the numbers mean? by Cecil Adams.
Your Official Cat Goddess since 10/20/99.
I am the youngest of four kids and I have the lowest SSN of the group. I believe I got that number because my parents applied for the numbers all at the same time (the IRS was not as demanding back then when it came to claiming dependants on your return). Most likely some SSA clerk put my application on the top of the stack while processing them.
Conveniently, I am able to keep track of my brother’s SNNs since they are all 3 numbers apart.
As for databases of death certificates, states keep those as well, but they are not cross-referenced to any birth certificates for a variety of reasons.
You can look up deceased people’s SSNs through the Social Security Death Index on the web. Not every dead person with an SSN is listed however. You don’t get listed unless the SSA paid out a death benefit for you.
I still don’t get how that SS index works my mother had death benefits and she isn’t on it. In fact I can’t find anyone on it.
It is realatively new. My mum died about 20 years ago. My dad about 25 years ago.
The publicly available SSN Death Index has one big problem: spelling. There are thousands of spelling errors, along with numerous errors in the numbers. It’s not the world’s most reliable source.
In retrospect, this would lead me to believe that it probably isn’t that hard to get a new SSN.
How does one make it to the age of 35 w/o have a ss#? One (possible) excuse is to claim that although you’re a US citizen, you’ve lived overseas your whole life (your dad was a diplomat, whatever).
As far as “losing” yourself goes… well, technically it’s fairly easy, but you have to do it alone, which leads to the next problem–lonliness. It also helps to be flush with cash when you disappear. How are you going to get a job without leaving a paper trail? Disappearing’s easy, it’s staying disappeared that’s hard.
It’s a long way to heaven, but only three short steps to hell.