I looked for an answer for this first, but wasn’t quite clear…I was talking to my insurance carrier a few days ago and when she brought up my ss# it wasn’t my name. she says that with all of the people in the world numbers are bound to be duplicated. Is that true at this time. Should I seek other advice about changing my number. She gave me the (ladies?) name but then realized she had fudged and refused to give me anymore information. suggestions??? thanks for your time.
I don’t think the US government has started issuing numbers to citizens of other countries just yet.
With fake SS cards being sold, isn’t it possible that your number may be one of the chosen numbers? If so, does that mean they are putting money into your account? Your insurance carrier is pretty stupid, though, to think that SS numbers are duplicated, and to say that’s because of all the people in the world. I’d change carriers really fast. :dubious:
Obviously, she is wrong. The, U.S. government issues SSN#'s and they don’t duplicate. SSN#'s are 9 digits long which make 999,999,999 of them possible. With only about 1/3 of that number ever issued there are many left.
She is an idiot but there is a problem problem somewhere. It is most likely a data entry error in one of their databases. I had the same thing happen to me when I applied to college. They thought I was a dup (which isn’t possible) but someone had simply entered mine on someone else’s record.
You certainly don’t change your SSN. I can’t imagine the nightmare involved in that. My SSN has my year of birth listed incorrectly and I was sent the list of steps needed to take care of that with the federal government. I have chosen to just die before retirement instead.
The available numbers are less than 999,999,999 because there is a code involved that shows which regional office the number came from. When the system starts to run out in one region, though, it’s easy to see how they would simply drop that part of it.
I wouldn’t ignore this. You might try calling the Soc. Sec. Admin. for advice and/or send your ins. carrier a registered, return rec’t. requested, letter stating that you believe they may have made an error in entering your SSN into another persons acct. I would not be satisfied until I got a wriiten explanation, something I could keep on file in case this develops into a bigger problem.
Your agents explanation of duplicate numbers is extremely improbable, but even if it did happen you’d certainly want it corrected.
There have been a small number of errors where two people have been given the same SSN by the government.
It is far more likely that someone has falsified their identity and is using your SSN. This is going to be a major problem for you and the sooner you start working to fix it the better. You don’t want this to still be a problem when you retire and you need to provide documentation that you threw out decades ago. One thing that sometimes happens as a result of such a mess is that you might get assigned a new SSN to prevent future confusion. Which leads to:
Since some people have to get new SSNs, that also deducts from the number of available SSNs.
http://www.ssa.gov/mystatement/
If you are contributing to the system (paying the tax through employment or self-employment) you should review your statement every year to see if it makes sense.
My 23 yo niece who lives in the non-48 states is still trying to straighten out an IRS/SSA issue because her number was ripped off by itinerant labor at a chicken-procressing plant in Georgia.
Right, what he said. Dudes are out there selling SSN’s.