Creating a new identity

If one were to want to get away from one’s life…

Really get away. How would they go about getting a new identity and establishing this new life?

Let’s say, hypothetically, they could get their hands on about $25,000 in cash. Then travel several thousand miles, to somewhere they were completely unknown. Then what? How to get ID, bank account, job?

Assuming of course that they wanted to remain anonymous, and that there may be some effort put into finding them.

This is all for a… book… ya, that’s right, a book…

Realistically, they’re SOL for bank accounts and jobs. Some jobs provide employee photo IDs, but for the most part if they aren’t willing to use parts of their government identity (Birth certificate/immigration papers, social security number or Visas) they won’t be hired. One job I had got my social security number wrong of file, so I can only assume they didn’t look closely at the card copy I sent, or maybe they just copied my chicken scratch from W-4 without verifying at all… A lot of people in the United States, not sure about elsewhere, don’t have bank accounts. There are check cashing places if by miracle they can get around the requirements of identification from the I-9 form, they take a decently sized percentage from your check but that’s the price of not using banks or credit unions. Working under the table is also an option, as can nontraditional job options from online, like Etsy, entertainment with funding via whatever service won’t require an identity, assuming you hide the income well enough.

I don’t know how hard people will be looking for your character, but I think that going down the courthouse to have a name changed, moving far away, and being unlisted in the phone book/no phone number attached to a name would be enough. Sites like Spokeo have options to remove information from their site. Spokeo | People Search | Opt Out It depends on who is looking for them. If high priority criminals like Whitey Bulger can stay hidden for decades, so can they. If they’re being stalked it could be the same way, but I’ve heard some crazy ex stories that makes me think the government should hire some of them as investigators.

Using no aspects of the original identity, not being a witness needing protection, and not stealing an identity (which is a horrible thing to do to anyone, so only do this if your protagonist is an asshole with no regard for others whatsoever) they will be living similarly to undocumented immigrants. Could even get a change of pace by legitimately travelling abroad, “losing” all the paperwork, and being a real undocumented immigrant. Or just be homeless, a lot of people do not care about homeless people, and even those who do only require identifying information if they apply for public assistance.

Whatever they decide to do, life will be much different, and it will lack the stability that being linked to a unique identity has. So hopefully they can make that 25k last, but on the other hand having to struggle will make for an engrossing plot. Maybe you’ll win a Pulitzer. :wink:

Found this on changing SSNs. https://faq.ssa.gov/link/portal/34011/34019/Article/3789/Can-I-change-my-Social-Security-number Probably not super helpful for the protagonist, but as an author it can help you write some frustrating exposition in chapter 1. I saw an opportunity to overuse SWIM style and I took it shamelessly. Hope this was helpful.

Yeah, as scratcher_cat says, short of getting in the witness protection program, you can’t really disconnect yourself from your present identity without abandoning most of the normal things that people do today. That’s because of computerized databases, widespread fingerprinting, SSNs given at birth, and other practices. You can change your name, but you’ll still have your original SSN, or be connected to it. At one time it was possible, (though not legal, of course), to assume the identity of people who died in infancy, but not anymore.

Well, I guess one advantage of doing it in Europe is that a few thousand miles gets you to a country where you don’t speak the language and can claim to be a refugee. The biggest problem would be how to get real refugees from outing you.

That’s of course setting aside the little detail that you’d be giving up a lot of legal and economical advantages. In general, moving and not registering at your local consulate would be a lot easier and more advantageous while making you relatively hard to find.

Well, I’ve never been fingerprinted, so that would be in my favor.

I’d hang out somewhere and meet/befriend someone who is legit, but living on the edge. Someone my height and race. Maybe someone doing some small time dealing. Kill him without leaving easily ID’d remains, then assume his identity and move on.

Oh, sure, I do that all the time.

Push comes to shove/worst case scenario/gun to your child’s head kind of scenario it’s something doable, at least for me.

If you’re a war criminal, you could grow a beard, practise “New Age” medicine and live in the capital city.

I’m talking about the practicality of this scenario. Where exactly would you “hang out” to find such a person, that perfectly fits these conditions? Someone who’s never been booked by the police, gotten a state ID with a fingerprint (which yours wouldn’t match, eventually), and never ever engaged some aspect of his identity in a way that sooner or later would require verification, and doesn’t have at all any family or acquaintance who would at some point catch up. It is possible, sure, but very unlikely, to find such a person. And, of course, you’d have to continue living in this extremely marginalized way.

I think you could meet a down-and-out reprobate of similar age and gender who has no drivers license nor bank account, befriend him, pay him an acceptable amount of money for his social security card, and simply move to another state and assume his identity. In all likelihood, he will never blow the whistle on you, nor become successful enough to be tax-audited, nor be a fugitive if he ever gets in trouble with the law. You can easily live without credit, so a low credit rating would not be much of an impediment. Anybody can get anybody’s birth certificate, so you can even get a passport.

In fact, you can even do all of the above while on a visit to Canada, and then you’ll even get free quality health care.

I don’t want to write a “how to” manifesto. But I’d basically invest some time hanging out in the right kind of bars, chatting with guys who are day-drinking, and dropping subtle hints.

Their rap-sheet or lack there-of isn’t as important as is a lack of people who would be concerned should they disappear suddenly. I know people right now who fit this description.

After taking their driver’s license and other credentials (and insuring his remains wouldn’t resurface and be found floating) I would relocate and rent a room for a bit, paying cash in advance and keeping to myself. I would repeat the relocation thing a few times before settling in for any length of time.

Unless you can guarantee this person you just so casually murdered also has never been fingerprinted, you get found out if you ever get picked up. And what do you mean, assume his identity? You might be able to alter his drivers license, but you won’t be able to alter the license on file that will pop up the first time you get pulled over.

Well, if you are in a situation like that you stay off the radar. “Get picked up”? I’m 58 years old now and I’ve never been “picked up”.

Again, people who have iffy credentials go out of their way to not get pulled over. Now, I’ve been pulled over a handful of times, but always because of things I coulod have avoided, like speeding, rolling through a stop sign, etc.

But remember-you took the I.D. of a guy that was “living on edge”. Whenever you use his I.D. you don’t know what flags might or might not pop up. This is a risk when using a real identity instead of a created one.

Which is why I do not use his ID locally, I move on. Small time guys “living on the edge” tend to be local phenoms.

Travel to a city where you’ve never been, go into the local hospital… act really strange, and claim to not know who you are…

That’s becoming increasingly hard.

For example, what if one of your relatives did the 23andMe DNA thing? I’ve had two close relatives and at least one semi-distant one do that. If they ran my DNA thru that they’d have my immediate family easily. Other genealogical sites are also collecting DNA for family research purposes.

You’d have to deny the hospital permission to take a DNA sample. Red flags go up, non-hilarity ensues.

You would basically have to come from a deprived family who doesn’t have the money to do such “frivolous” things.

Best bet: less developed country where living is cheap and the local officials easily bribed. And a lot of money. Which you bribe a bank official to accept. The last thing you want to be is known as is the secretive foreigner with a lot of cash.

You could route your money overseas the offshore bank (actually several offshore banks) to your destination country. And then bribe a bank official at the other end to transfer the money to you and to another account without leaving a paper trail.

It’s one thing to go off the grid for a while, and another to create a whole new identity.
Of course, I would not want my guy to have to kill someone. He’s not that kind of guy.

It sounds like he’d need to get ahold of a SSN (or SIN) from somewhere to use to start building his identity. Buy one from some down and out dude?

Another tricky part would be making an escape without being caught on some sort of CCT somewhere. After being reported as a missing person, presumably the police would look at footage from bus stations, airports, trains, ferries etc. In fact, a local guy who was clearly doing a runner was clearly photographed departing a ferry recently…

And how about moving the $25K? I suppose some planning in advance would be required…
Get SSN (SIN in Canada)
Somehow get other ID (how does one get a Driver’s licence with only a SSN? Birth certificate? Anyway, get ID in place.
Get bank account in place, ready to accept $25K in cash

How about removing the $25K from the original account? Are there not warnings in place about money over 10K moving about?

Hmmmm. This does sound challenging. I begin to understand the many cases I have read about lately of the 50-something year old guys who drive up into the woods and are only found some months later scattered around by animals. I don’t think they had to put much planning into it…

The hard part is getting a job. If you’ve got the kind of skills where you can do the kinds of work where they don’t check your ID, then you’re OK. Plenty of undocumented people working here in the US manage it. The only problem is that they work in low-skill low-wage jobs. Backbreaking day labor isn’t any fun.

But who exactly is looking for you? The FBI? Yeah, now you wanna not give your SSN at work. But if you’re just looking to ditch the local mobsters, simply moving to a new town and staying away from your old buddies and family will do the trick. Maybe if Ricky Two-Fingers shows his face in New Jersey he’s gonna get whacked the first time he walks into a strip club, but if he moves to a small town in Iowa and starts going by Ricardo and grows a beard, how is the mob supposed to find him?

All this assumes you don’t get arrested. One of the best ways to never get stopped by the cops is to stop driving. The only interactions I’ve had with cops in the last 20 years has been when I’ve been pulled over a couple of times for speeding tickets. Even if you get a speeding ticket it’s not like they fingerprint you, unless you’ve got warrants out. And even if you’ve got warrants in New Jersey, does that show up on the cop’s computer in Iowa?

Once you have your new identity, just don’t drive a car anymore. The chances are very near zero that you will ever have a police encounter on foot in the daytime. Go to bed early and ride the bus.