# Stolen wallet: Change Social Security Number?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-wallet-change-social-security-number/396511>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [March 19, 2007, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-wallet-change-social-security-number/396511 "2007-03-19T02:43:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-wallet-change-social-security-number/396511/1 "2007-03-19T02:43:39Z")

</div>

My son was the victim of a carjacking last week. Among other things, the thief robbed him of his wallet, which had (of course) his Driver’s License in it.

Since son’s D.L. number is the same as his Social Security number, would you recommend having the SSN changed, in order to prevent identity theft? I’ve heard you can do this only four times in your lifetime. The State is already having folks to change their D.L. number to something other than SSN, so we’ll do that too.

BTW son is 18 yrs old, so he probably doesn’t have much of an ‘identity’ out there yet.

Opinions please? Thanks in advance 🙂 .

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ethelbert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ethelbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ethelbert)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-wallet-change-social-security-number/396511/2 "2007-03-19T13:36:47Z")

</div>

According to [this](http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10064.html#getting) the SSA will not issue a new number unless there is evidence that the old number is being misused. You cannot get a new number as a preventative measure.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2007, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stolen-wallet-change-social-security-number/396511/3 "2007-03-19T15:16:07Z")

</div>

Guess I should have looked before I leapt. Thanks **ethelbert**.