Can damage be done with just an SSN?

[Julia_My_Love]

I’m a college student with no line of credit.

I usually am proactive about protecting my identity but I recently messed up when I told a bank teller my SSN while people were next to and behind me. One guy turned his head to me, the other was busy typing something on his smartphone (he was a deliveryman who held the door open for me out of kindness maybe?)
Anyway, I’m sure everyone in the bank heard me. it’s a small space and at a quiet hour. Shoot, my voice might’ve even echoed through the room.

So I already read a lot of identity theft articles and im not looking for another regurgitation of steps I should take to limit damage–
**1) I do no have a credit line and cannot monitor a nonexistent credit score. 2) I do not have a premise to file a fraud report 3) ssa is having trouble identifying me when I try to see my statement (will try again tomorrow)
**
So one of the perks of my hard-to-spell name is that it’s hard, even for credit bureaus and the government to pull my info and verify me, let alone a thieve trying to impersonate me.

However, the thing I’ve been losing a lot of sleep over is: what can a person do with just my ssn? I’ve read articles about child identity theft, and SSNs used under different names and dobs for employment and loans…which beats me because that’s a security flaw. I have even dated a Hispanic girl who told me that her parents falsifies their ssn because “they’re not from here”. So I’m thinking just a SSN can do a lot of damage with little to no personally identifiable information, but I hope I’m wrong??

[LSLGuy]

You probably did no damage. Relax.

Not only would they have to have heard you, they’d have had to write it down quickly. And the real kicker: there had to have been somebody in the identity theft business there in the lobby with you at that moment.

Everyone is always at small risk from an illegal immigrant picking 9 digits at random that happen to be yours. So there’s not much you or anyone else can do to make that less likely. So relax about it.

[iiandyiiii]

If you’re a surface ship, then an SSN can do a ton of damage.

[Chronos]

It is true that an illegal worker (immigrant or otherwise) can just pick some random SSN out of thin air, and is likely to pick one that legitimately belongs to someone else. But what is the result of this? They can work under that number and pay into the social security system, but they can’t collect out of it without proof that they’re actually you. In other words, the only risk is that someone might give you free money.

[running_coach]

@Chronos

It is true that an illegal worker (immigrant or otherwise) can just pick some random SSN out of thin air, and is likely to pick one that legitimately belongs to someone else. But what is the result of this? They can work under that number and pay into the social security system, but they can’t collect out of it without proof that they’re actually you. In other words, the only risk is that someone might give you free money.

[URL=“http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/10/technology/security/hackers-tax-refund/”]Tax return fraud.

[Chronos]

Yes, but that requires at a minimum that you also have the name that’s attached to the number, and it probably gets easier the more additional pieces of information you have. The illegal worker who’s just picking a nine-digit number at random won’t have that.

[Kevbo]

@Chronos

It is true that an illegal worker (immigrant or otherwise) can just pick some random SSN out of thin air, and is likely to pick one that legitimately belongs to someone else. But what is the result of this? They can work under that number and pay into the social security system, but they can’t collect out of it without proof that they’re actually you. In other words, the only risk is that someone might give you free money.

Well I had such a thing happen, and it caused a real problem.

I lost my job, and was approved for unemployment insurance benefits. In checking my payroll history, it turned out that someone had been collecting wages from an electrical contractor under my SSN. This was not especially recently…6mos or a year before I lost my job, I forget.

As a result, they put my payments on hold until this was resolved. It was madening because there were only two possible ways it could go:

A: They decided I am lying, and really had collected those wages, in which case I would be eligible for payments.

B: They decided I was telling the truth, and had never worked for that employer, in which case I would be eligible for payments.

Instead they chose a third option

C: Fuck around passing my case from desk to desk trying to figure out what to do about it, thus the case was unresolved, thus my payments were still on hold… For six fucking months.

Fortunately I had savings to live on. My entire unemployment benefit was eventually paid in one lump sum, which I am still working on spending (EBT card) two years later, as by the time I got it, I had become really good at living on the cheap.

So if there were a person currently reporting wages on your SSN, you could become ineligible for UI benefits, student aid, work-study, health insurance assistance, and pretty much any other need-based program.

[Julia_My_Love]

I see, I know everybody are a risk, but others are at INCREASED risk. So that’s my concern. Anybody able to shed light on synthetic identity fraud–in which someone combined a real ssn with false name and dob?

[Johnny_L.A]

@iiandyiiii

If you’re a surface ship, then an SSN can do a ton of damage.

My question was going to be ‘Just an SSN? Or does it have its torpedoes as well?’

.

[robby]

@Johnny_L.A

My question was going to be ‘Just an SSN? Or does it have its torpedoes as well?’

I thought this was a submarine thread, too. :smack:

[robert_columbia]

@Chronos

It is true that an illegal worker (immigrant or otherwise) can just pick some random SSN out of thin air, and is likely to pick one that legitimately belongs to someone else. But what is the result of this? They can work under that number and pay into the social security system, but they can’t collect out of it without proof that they’re actually you. In other words, the only risk is that someone might give you free money.

Do you actually get to keep that money? Like if you go to the Social Security office to officially retire and tell them that hey, that job in Memphis from 2011 to 2013 wasn’t actually me, and that one in Anchorage in 2015 wasn’t me either, will they adjust your benefits accordingly or will they just shrug and say, “It’s your SSN, their loss”?