Baron Of Hell

Some time ago I was turned down for a bank account because some lady had the same SSN as me.

How should I go about fixing this. I'm not sure which credit reporting agency was the one the reported this. I did report this some time ago but I doubt it has been fixed.

I have gotten cards and accounts without problems but I'm thinking they might just have checked with a different agency. hmmmm

I guess the first thing to do is call all the agencies to see if the problem still exist but assuming it does what should I do about it?

garolo

Call SSA the first thing Monday morning. If it's not a mistake by the bank and you two do have the same SSN there is potential for a tremendous amount of agita. Check the statements you should have received from SSA. Verify that the income earned amounts are correct.

tommyp007

I wasn't aware this was possible. learn something new every day

hahn

Yeah, this shouldn't happen. Either the bank made in error in checking you up, the lady screwed up by writing the wrong SS# when she applied and the bank didn't catch it, or the government really did screw up and gave you the wrong SS#.

Of course, if there really are two of you with the same ss#, and she doesn't know about it yet, you should consider the tax benefits.

Hiro11

I used to manage anti-fraud strategies at a credit card issuer. Since SSN is one of the best unique identifiers for consumers, credit card companies use it all the time. Because so many of our processes relied on SSN, we did a study of all of our card holders (over 100 million people) and found that about 22 million SSNs were double issued in the late seventies and early eighties. We asked the SSA about this and they admitted this is a known issue...many many people legitamately share an SSN. More recently, illegal immagrants have started selling legit SSNs and sharing them amoung family members/friends/whoever with similar names. We found many occassions where more than 10 people (all with similar names) had the same SSN on their account.

Long story short, the SSA's database is completely fubared and unreliable. It needs a top-to-bottom overhaul. This is why the SSA refuses to share their source data with banks/credit institutions: they know themselves how bad the data is. More and more people are going to have this type of problem and until they fix it, it's going to be more and more difficult for Americans to do anything financial.

al_bundy

was classicman's SS# being shared with anyone?

Sloth911

run a credit check also

JasonF

I think classicman is the only person with 000-00-0001

Seeker

And of course the SSC card says right on it:

"Not to be used for identification purposes"

or something like that. At least mine does.

garolo

Tell that to each state DMV, the medical insurance industry, the credit industry and every other government agency.

griz

That just means you can't use the card as an only form of ID. Having the SS card doesn't mean it's yours.

I hope no one accepts SS cards as an only form of ID, because that's just plain stupid.

Baron Of Hell

Looks like I got some work to do. Better by get some beer.

DVD Polizei

Wow, that's crazy.

victant

Late 70's and early 80's...I hope I'm not one of those!!

That is crazy....

ChiTownAbs, Inc

My thinking exactly ... I wonder if there is a way to figure out of somebody else shares the same SSN as you do. I've run multiple credit checks over the years and never crossed anything that didn't look familiar.

garolo

It's easy. Check your SSI statement that the SSA should be sending to you every year. My wife and I have been getting them for the last 5 years or so. Check the total earned income for the year. If it is more than what your W2 says then someone else is contributing to your account.

Credit checks will only show if someone tried to get credit/open an account, ran a check on you. Absense of credit activity is not a guarantee that some else is not "sharing" your number.

Groucho

Color me shocked, SHOCKED, that the government could screw up something as simple as "one number per person."

Nosmo Rex

I guess I'm OK, since my SSN is only 4 digits long.

cuz I'm so old and stuff...

Mongo

Yikes.... I guess I should pay more attention to those statements. I'm not sure when I got a SSN, but since they weren't required for children at birth (or 1 year, whatever it is now) I probably didn't get one right away, but my mother died in '78 and I got SS benefits until I was 18, so late 70s is probably about the time I got my number.