I am currently trying to undo the mess that a mexican did to my daughter's SS#. Seems he's been using her # and making over $40,000 a year and here I am trying to go back to work after being out medically for almost 5 ! Didn't think that going to the gov'ment to get help would open my children up to scam, but that seems to be where it's coming from. That's the only place I've used her SS# that year and less than a month later, someone's using it.
It's phone calls daily for me to try and find everything he's done with her #, etc and no one's helping, or going to re-imburse me for my time and long distance, which I think they should be made to do.

Hello, people. Lets get a few things here strait. SSA started out and still is a voluntary federal employee retirement program. By law, the only people required to have a number are aliens and people who are applying for or receiving benefits funded in part or in whole by the feds. If you are a Christian, as difficult as it would make life here with this Nazi-like marking of us and our children - see Mark of the Beast, you would avoid this number thing for yourself and your children like plague. We have all been defrauded by our government and its lies. What right does anyone have to steal money from your pocket to fund their disability or retirement or put their kids through school? That is the definition of socialism/communism and theft. What happened to our right to contract, to work, and to the full fruit of our labors. Do your research. Look up The Great IRS Hoax and SSN-The Mark of the Beast. You may understand then, but you won't like it. All of our politicians ought to be hung til dead for this fraud.

Poem by The Peace in to:
http://www.literaturadeficcion.com.ar/por%20la%20paz.htm
Thanks:!

This article shows the problems caused by the fact that most people have been brainwashed into believing that they absolutely must have an SSN. I have done some research on this, and all requirements for having one come from the misuse of SSNs by outside agencies. The Social Security Administration states very plainly that as far as they're concerned, getting one is voluntary. As far as banks go, if you aren't getting any interest, they have absolutely NO legitimate reason for asking for an SSN. Same with schools. Any school that asks for a child's SSN should be emphatically turned down. Banks now point to the Patriot Act, but that doesn't even mention SSNs as ID, to the best of my knowledge. It does mention verifying customers identification, but an SSN is not a legal ID, even though it's sometimes, and very unfortunately, used as one.

Federal law used to limit the use of SSN. It could only be used by the social security administration. Then the IRS could use it. Then law enforcement agencies. Then medical agencies wanted them. Then schools wanted to use them. Wouldn't it be better if they were very limited in use instead of prevasive and explosive!

How about this? Live on what you make. Don't pay interest on consumables or things that are guaranteed to depreciate. In other words, don't live above your means - that is, what you earn. Credit cards are the devil's tool, and if people quit nursing on the "spend, spend, spend" teet, more personal inforrmation could be kept personal. As long as we keep feeding our vital stats to anyone who seems to care, the downfall is inevitable.

You would think the Federal government would have some software monitoring SSAN deposits so that they can be alerted when they are receiving them from different sources on a regular basis. Then again, why should they, they are getting extra money and they would have to spend money to correct the situation. By putting monitoring software in place they can catch these impostors, but its not profitable, so why try. Maybe they should turn over this monitoring to a private company and they get paid for each duplicate SSAN being used, that would catch the crooks.

My daughter's SSN was being used since 1997, we only found out when she filed her first tax return and discovered that it was being garnished for back taxes. After many many hours of research, we were able to find the name, address and where this person worked. He was smart enough not to use it for credit purposes or to obtain a drivers license, but it has taken us a year dealing with every agency on the local,state level and the IRS, it is finally being addressed by the secret service. But she will probably have several more years of this before it is through. Running a credit report would not have brought it to our attention. We found out that ll00 inactive SSN were sold to illegal immigrants and that 700-800 are in Massachusetts. This is a nightmare for parents and the elderly would have no idea how to straighten this out. We actually have a notebook full of correspondence from every agency that we have dealt with. Social Security suggested we get her a new number, but I feel that if we do-then this person gets away with this. We are hopeful that he will be arrested and deported soon! Something has to be done about this! Can you imagine, going to another country, using someone else's identity and getting away with it! It's an outrage. I am all for immigrants coming to this country legally and being law abiding citizens, but I think that most immigrants are not entering legally.

O K Bob, now that you have me P. o."D what can I do to help stop this mess. my daughter is 9 years old and works in the movie industry. That makes my very nervous. thanks jim sullivan

I am wondering why every child must have ssn as soon as they are born. Why not have ssn at 16 yrs or more. So thieves can't use it at early ages. School don't need ssn from all kids. for what?? The banks don't give darn about your ssn. just want your money. They knew all about it and do nothing about it. Why don't you call your own government to demand to do something about the banks. New laws for banks. Social Security : It's thier responsilbe too. They record of everything you uses ssn. They should know that early ages can't work and still allow them going on. Rules are don't put ssn on personal checks,on envolpes(same goes for accounts), and so on. Why not have pictures goes with ssn? No more impostors, huh..

I am a CPA and prepare taxes. I know the IRS checks all social security numbers submitted against the name on file with the Social Security system. (If a married couple files with the same last name, but the wife hasn’t changed her name with Social Security, the return will be kicked out.) If a SS# has already been used on a return that has been filed, the new return will be kicked out. This only seems to happen on efiled returns though. If it happens to you, your tax preparer can tell you how to contest it. In addition, a previous comment mentioned people buying SS#s. Below I have copied information from the IRS site about reporting fraud. Fraud like this drives up costs for ALL of us and needs to be reported. On a related note, the IRS requires the children’s social security numbers to cut down on fraud. The same type of losers who purchase a kids SS# now, used to make up nonexistent children to claim on their taxes. Which is why you need the SS# for the child now.

Off of IRS.gov website:
If you suspect or know of an individual or company that is not complying with the tax laws, you may report this activity by completing Form 3949-A. You may fill out Form 3949-A online, print it and mail it to:
Internal Revenue Service
Fresno, CA 93888
If you do not wish to use Form 3949-A, you may send a letter to the address above. Please include the following information, if available:
• Name and address of the person you are reporting
• The taxpayer identification number (social security number for an individual or employer identification number for a business)
• A brief description of the alleged violation, including how you became aware of or obtained the information
• The years involved
• The estimated dollar amount of any unreported income
• Your name, address and daytime telephone number
Although you are not required to identify yourself, it is helpful to do so. Your identity can be kept confidential. You may also be entitled to a reward.

Random guessing of SSN generally works.
450 million of the 900 million numbers
have been assigned so far in the 70-year program.
About 65 million of those have died.
So you have a pretty good chance of guessing
a working number. Find a legal nam and address
take a little more work.

Since the government requires us to have an ssn I think they should allow us full access to ALL information attached to that number. I would, however, stipulate that they provide the info ONLY to the person in whos name the number was originally established. A simple first step would be to make the credit agencies disclose to the consumer the same information they give to their customers. In most cases ssn hitchikers privacey would not be subject to protection because in all but 2 states ID theft is a crime.

What I would like to know, is why can't the Government set up a link between Social Security numbers and age so that when applying for a job with an underage number it quickly blocks the number from being used and the local FBI Dept. gets the name of the person applying, name of business and address and immediately pay the company a visit so that not just the company will think twice of checking but whomever is trying to use the number stopped?

The bottom line is that the laws regarding SSN's and our ability to access certain areas of our credit reports need to be changed. But without enough outraged, we'll never be able to force our "representatives" hands and deal with the issue.

Early detection is a key element in fighting all forms of identity theft. It’s frustrating that there are limited resources in detecting child identity theft.

The IRS could help. They have access to all SSNs submitted on tax returns. In many cases, an ID thief uses the child’s SSN to get a job. Parents report the child’ SSN to claim them as a dependent. I don’t see a good reason why the IRS can’t search for dual use of a child’s SSN.

www.IdTheftAwareness.com

Only an illegal alien or an unscrupulous parent needs someone else's SSN. The IRS and/or the Social Security Administration are supposed to check the W-2s filed by employers annually for a matching name and SSN. Now I think they only need to tell the employer they didn't find a match. I think the law should be changed to deny employers the tax deductions they take on wages paid to people whose name and SSN don't match. This could go a long way in ensuring that illegal aliens are not employed by these worthless employers. Even though there is a law on the books requiring employers to hire people who are legally authorized to work, many employers don't do that. Its all a matter of politics - the GOP is beholden to business interests who hire illegal aliens and the craven Democrats don't do anything either because they need illegal aliens to vote for them in elections (do you ever wonder why the Democrats are always against checking photo ids for people who vote - it has nothing to do with the fear of suppressing minority votes, it has everything to do with ensuring that those not entitled to vote can vote a straight Democrat ticket). No wonder there is rampant abuse of SSNs and other identifying documents of that nature.

Red Tape Chronicles does a great service in informing us all about problems such as this. There is relatively little publicity about a huge number of problems like this one that are eroding security of average Americans.

I feel like we're back in about 1900, where big companies ripped off the public at will and the public had no rights. We've regressed because today both companies and the governmental irresponsibly use technology against the interests of the public. And no laws exist to protect the public from this abuse.

We need a national movement to seek laws that protect us all.

My best friend's mom is a real flake- has declared bankruptcy several times, is living off of her mother's credit line, etc. My friend went to get phone service in her first apartment, and they denied her because she had an outstanding account that her mother opened in her name when she was 7 years old. Sometimes the parents are just as big of crooks as the guy digging through your trashcan for information.

i have an experience to share on this subject. my husband's parents used his SSN to get a telephone in the early '80s and never paid the bill. when we started our life together in the '90s, we were informed by the phone company that he owed a bill over $700 and we were promptly refused service, even though we could show proof that he was a young child when the transaction in question took place. at this point they told me i couldn't even put the phone in my name until his bill was paid. their suggestion was to sue his parents. (we did not.) his parents' defense was "we HAD to have a phone and couldn't pay our bill so we got one under his name". certainly not going to pay a bill that did not involve me: i went back to the phone company, was helped by a different person, and got the phone in my maiden name. it's now 11 years later, the issue has not been resolved and i've even half-joked that HE should have changed HIS name when we got married! his parents' stupidity will wreak havoc on us forever.

I work for major health insurance company in So. Calif. The main subscriber of the plan is required to have a ssn to enroll in health insurance. Our systems automatically detect if there is a duplicate SSN in the system. We contact the employer grp to verify the ssn. In 99% of the cases the person using someone else’s ssn, is of Latin dissent (surnames) Lopez, Gonzales, Herenadez. When we contact the false user employer they almost never respond back or that employee leaves employment with providing proof that it was their SSN. It's really sad. The only thing we can do is tell the potential victim to contact SSI, or the credit companies to find if their number has been used for other fraudulent activity. This is huge problem in Calif., which stems from the illegal immigration.

This whole problem is governement created. If the IRS did not have to require a SSN for a child for taxes then this problem would not even exist. More laws just make more criminals and more opportunities for crime to exist. ID theft is a serious problem. Here, the government has made it easier for it to occur without providing any sort of way to find or stop it.

What is the point of having a SSN if noone bothers to check that it belongs to the person using it? Clearly a 5 yr. old is not eligible to work in a restaurant or anywhere else! If it is useless as a unique identifier, which it must be if a 40 yr. old man can be employed/receive benefits/credit etc. with the SSN of a 5 yr. old girl, what is the point of making us all carry this portal to identity theft?

I'm pretty sure even with checking with a credit reporting agency you won't be able to find evidence of abuse. I think it was the most recent story in this section of the site that involved a woman's ATM with photo? *she* couldn't find out about the guy who stole her SSN, but businesses could see that there was another person using her SSN, but they're required to not give out that information. The credit agencies require that any "end user" or civilian queries include name, age, state or other identifiers so they can make sure to only give out that *person's* information linked to SSN.

Pretty convenient that way.

If an individual fraudulently works on, lets say a child's SSN, this has no negative impact on the child, with regards to potential benefits in the future. However, when the earnings are reported from the employer to IRS, and IRS then sends the info to Social Security, if Social Security's information does not match that of the employer's reported information, such as the worker's name, the earnings go into a suspense file and nobody gets the credit. The problems arise of course when people use the SSN for credit, bank accounts, schools and other things. But unfortunately, Social Security has no control over the use of the SSN with those places. The SSN was originally intended to be for work purposes and reporting taxes. Not necessarily for credit.

It's about time that we here in the U.S. use the SSN as it was intended and ONLY for what it was intended, and that is for Social Security, such as what they do in the U.K....not for endless identification. People keep complaining about the possibility of a national I.D. number or card....shoot, we've already had that for years thanks to Credit Agencies, business and health. It's called the Social Security Number.

the thing that gets me is that if you can prove that it is in deed your ssn why cant you see ALL history assosiated w/ your ssn.

We are told to watch for grammar and spelling errors to detect pfishing etc. Such errors on the site connected to your idtheftcenter.org link lead one to question their validity.

as a parent, it has to bother you. i had a scare a few weeks ago regarding both my ssn and my son's! a medical service that my son's doctor had us go through had patient information stolen out of an employee's car. granted, it was backup documents for a computer system, but why the heck was it in an employee's car? i thought that there were laws that prevented that! once i called the medical service company they confirmed that my family was not at risk. it is just the principle of the thing.

Equifax contact info - https://www.econsumer.equifax.com/consumer/sitepage.ehtml?forward=contact_us
Experian contact info - http://www.experian.com/customer_service/mail.html
TransUnion contact info - http://www.transunion.com/Contact.jsp?from=TransUnionHome

So, logically, the next question is: If an illegal immigrant's been using a kid's SSN for 15 years or so in order to get a job, who gets the money when the fraud is exposed? My bet is, it ain't the kid. I can't imagine the bureaucrats letting an opportunity like this get away.

I had been asked for my daughters' SSN to open an account for them with some inheritence money left by my grandmother. I refused, since the person who was set to open it is not of the best moral character. I was not about to hand over their SSN to anyone-isnt there someway around this to protect them? I'm now told they cannot get this money.

This would be a great place to provide the 3 credit bureaus contact information.

My daughter's SSN was used when she was 13 but not noticed until she applied for a credit card at 19. Mind boggling that the credit reporting agencies won't reconcile her bithdate with the time the credit was issued. All the negative just stays there even though she was clearly, only 13 when they took place.

A couple years ago I worked at a Goodwill store in Bryan, Tx. Kids' ss#S were being bought and sold for earned income credit on income tax returns. In one case, the bidding started at $700 and went to $1200 for a one time/one year only use. I was the only one around that seemed to be surprised...the other 6 or so people talking new the going price and most had bought a ss#. The really interesting thing, is one guy had bought a one year right to use a kids ss#, but didn't want to pay again, so he was trying to file his income tax return early before the new person buying the ss# could file his or hers.

I agree with your article on misuse involving children's ssn. I've heard of instances where relatives receiving welfare, SSI, or other assistance often using their child's ssn to obtain credit, phone service, apartments, and work, when they wish to remain anonymous and continue receiving aid.

It seems to me that the Feds let this fraud continue because the Feds have a vested monetary interest in letting it continue. When an illegal alien uses a SSN belonging to someone else, the feds get the witheld FIT and social security taxes from the bogus worker's paycheck. Hmmm.

This identity theft is out of control! Now that they know about ID theft and SSN ID theft, someone better act fast to correct this. Heck, mine or my two kids might be being used at this very moment and we wouldnt know about it, what really trips my trigger is that there is NO WAY to find out! I'm steamin mad!

Interesting Article.

My wife and I just had a child this last year. The hospital was all too eager to give us an application for a new social security number. We are going back and fourth about submitting for a SSN for the kid. I have found the following interesting and your readers might find so too.

I do not need a SSN for my kid to be on my health insurance. However, if I want to claim him as a dependant on my taxes, I need one to put in a box next to his name. Schools also ask for a SSN for the child, which I don’t quite understand as they are not reporting any credit or income for the child. Of course, an individual cannot be gainfully employed without a SSN and cannot file his own taxes either.

There are countless ‘social’ reasons to get a SSN. Insurance, taxes, credit etc; but I have been through the SS laws and cannot find one on the books that says ‘a citizen must have a SSN.’ In other words by law you are not REQUIRED to have one but if you intend to live in this country (by live I mean work and pay taxes) then there is no choice. Oh by the way, I asked if I can renounce my SSN, and of course I can’t.

I think it would have been easier for the hospital to just put a chip in the kid’s neck, it doesn’t seem that far fetched given the way the ‘system’ seems to work. Maybe the hospital did tag junior, after all how would I know for sure?

I feel so blessed to be raising my child under such a free and non-intrusive government (as long as I have a number.) Oh, if that wasn’t bad enough, now I need to worry about the chief bottle washer at the local diner stealing my kid’s number too.

Funny how a child can not sign a legal contract till age 18 but their credit report can get hit at age 11. Simple fact is a credit file should not start till age 18 (when they can legally sign contracts without their parents). How can you say a kid can have a credit history when ultimately their parents could be paying the bills (under age 18). This is such a needless problem (not that I am downplaying it).

Do we know of any real strides being done at the government level to prevent this from happening to our children? If so what is being done and what is the time frame in which something will be implemented to remedy the problem? It seems this has been going on for far to long without any real progress in preventing illegal immigrants from using legal citizens social security numbers.

I remember about eight years ago when a friend of mine told me about a "lawsuit settlement" with a certain baby food company, where all you had to do was mail in a copy of your child's birth certificate and you would be sent a $1,000 savings bond in your child's name. I wonder how many folks fell for that scam or ones just like it and are just now finding out their child's identity has been stolen.

I work for a bank in Massachussetts and we see this problem a lot on credit applicants. Usually it comes as a suprise to the applicant to know that they had a repossessed car at age 10.

I had a problem with my sons' SSN a few years ago. The school tried to tell me their was another child in the state school system with the same SSN. I had to go thru heck to verify it was his (my sons') SSN and it was the same one that had been issued to him and the same one that had always been used for purposes of school, insurance, etc.

this stirs serious implications on the real world to me. The idea of adults creating such heinous atrocties to chidren creates shivers for me.