I know there are always warnings about keeping your social security number private, but it really isn’t possible. I mean, it seems like everything you do with financial effects requires you to put it on an application or some such. Every credit card, installment purchase, apartment lease, job application, on and on.
Plus, I think it’s basically routine nowadays for parents to apply for a child’s SSN when they are very young, so of course the parents will know what it is. Yes, we presume parents aren’t going to use that info to harm their children, but let’s face it, you hear a lot of stories about stolen identities and many of them involve parents using their kid’s info to apply for credit after they’ve ruined their own.
So, in the aftermath of something like that, is there a way for the victim to get a new SSN (obviously with the SS people able to link between old and new for official reasons) to insure the offender who used the old SSN for some evil purpose can’t just turn around and do it again the next time they are in a financial bind?
I know we got our daughter a change of SSN after we adopted her 28 yrs ago. So there’s definitely a procedure for certain circumstances. Unfortunately I don’t remember any specifics anymore. It was done to retire her old SSN, as she’d been claimed on her birth mother’s taxes previously.
Yes, it can be done, but it is not easy to do. (If it were people would be tempted to run up bad debts, then change their SSN to clean credit history and repeat.)
You have to have a good reason, usually either being a victim of identity theft or stalking, and you have to present documents to the SSA to make your case for a new number.
You think rightly.
Parents get a tax deduction for each minor child. To obtain the tax deduction, they must provide the kid(s)’ SSN(s). As a result, all but tax protesters get their kids SSNs before the next time they file income taxes. So before the kid’s first birthday for sure.
Ah, thanks all! Good to know there is a way for those who need it for legitimate reasons.
Weirdly, the only case of stolen identity I’ve run into personally turned out to have helped the “victim.” Long ago a woman I knew and her husband were applying for loan to open a small store. They’d been nervous about it, not because they had anything bad in their financial histories, but because they were young, not that long out of college, and pretty much had NO financial record at all. But then the bank guy said, oh, no problem, Mrs. Jones, with your excellent credit history.
Turns out her parents had taken out several loans over the previous five years to handle some emergency situations (a medical bill, car repairs, her own tuition bill in one case) by using her name/SSN without her knowing anything. The parents had paid off those loans promptly according to the terms, so she had a very nice credit rating!
1987, to be precise, is when the SSA began the “Enumeration at Birth” program, which coincided with a change in Federal tax laws, requiring parents to include the SSNs of dependent children in order to claim the tax deduction.
When I got my SS card around 1972 or so, I was warned not to give it out to anyone not required to have it (banks, basically). When I moved to Canada and got a SIN (Social Insurance Number) I treated it the same way. When supermarkets started to accept credit cards, I avoided using them because I felt that their use added a couple percent to the cost of groceries to the detriment of poor people. At the first market I used, they gave me a cheque cashing card when I applied. Then I moved and the new market required a SIN to issue a card and so I figured F-em and just used the CC from then on. I have the feeling that almost everyone uses CCs these days.
I will just add that it’s exactly the same in Canada. It’s called a Social Insurance Number (SIN) here, and it cannot be changed just on request. You have to prove identity theft before you can be issued a new one. Also, the government no longer issues SIN cards, as they serve no useful purpose. There’s no point in issuing cards emblazoned with a number that is supposed to be confidential.
I think we can safely assume that every living American has had their name and number stolen at least once.
The fact we all haven’t been identity theft victims is testament to how much data theft is a wholesale business and identity theft is a mom and pop retail business.
Yep. I feel better now about my lost or (more likely) stolen wallet. Fortunately, I have a separate little wallet for plastic cards, and since almost anything of value these days is plastic, the only thing really lost in that wallet was some memorabilia, a small amount of cash, and a card bearing my SIN. This was probably over a year ago now and there have been no repercussions to anything. Of course, still a good idea to maintain confidentiality of your SSN/SIN/NI or whatever it’s called in your country, but it’s not the end of the world if it gets leaked. Still a good idea to check your credit record periodically, though, which is always good practice. If one is really paranoid, one can put a freeze on new credit applications. I’m not that paranoid.
I’ve had that happen to me twice. The second time I was able to call the bureau and lift the freeze while I was still negotiating the pay-over-time deal, so it was able to be approved immediately.
And the next week, once I was sure the deal was approved, I reinstated the freeze.