How To Cheque if Someone Else is Using Your Social Security Number
The rise of technology has brought new threats to your personal data and its security. Identity theft is a crime that strikes at the centre of a modern citizen's wealth, employment, social services, and more than. Our identity – specifically, the electronically-encoded identity that serves as the gateway to our bank accounts, to our home security systems, to our e-mail and network resources – can be stolen by unscrupulous people and used for crimes great and pocket-size.
At best, an identity thief may use office of your identity as the launchpad for some phony persona that they are using to commit acts of fraud and low-cal scams. At worst, they can drain your bank accounts, destroy your credit rating, and wipe out your hard-earned retirement benefits. Identity theft is not a small law-breaking – in 2018, more than 60 million Americans reported that they were affected by identity theft.
Someone May Be Using Your SSN
Quick Links
Someone May Exist Using Your SSN
Checking Your Credit Score
Inaccurate Banking Info
Your Mail Changes
Letters from the IRS
Calls from Credit Agencies
Other signs
How Do Scammers Get Your SSN?
Data Breach
Phone Call Scams
Your Social Security Menu
What If Someone Steals My Social Security Number?
Directly Check Your Social Security Number
Become a Social Security Statement
Get a Tax Transcript
Bank check Your Credit Report
Someone'southward Got Your Number – What Can You Do?
People can use your Social Security Number to access banking concern accounts, open new accounts, and more. If this is happening it may get undetected.
A lot of times there are indications that something is amiss. These are the meridian five signs your data has been compromised.
Checking Your Credit Score
The most common way to grab unauthorized activity is past checking your credit information. If an account appears that you did not initiate, someone is using your Social Security number.
You can check your credit score using a tertiary-political party service like Credit Karma or check with your credit card company to run into if they have such a feature.
If you're applying for a new line of credit and get turned down, this could hateful that there are fraudulent accounts or activities that are affecting your credit score.
Inaccurate Banking Info
When you lot're looking through your depository financial institution statements, you may detect charges or subscriptions that you didn't make. If this is the instance, someone either gained access to your debit card number, or they're accessing your bank account with your stolen Social Security Number.
Checking your banking statements and credit card statements regularly will keep yous updated on what's happening with your personal data.
Your Mail Changes
Whether you've stopped receiving bills and correspondence in the postal service, or y'all're receiving bills for accounts and products you did not buy, this is another sign that your Social Security Number has been compromised.
Scammers attempting to steal your personal information may watch your mailbox and steal the items from it.
Letters from the IRS
It'due south important to mention the IRS does non call people, they only don't. If the IRS is trying to get in touch with you lot, they'll ship a letter in the post. Assuming you haven't had whatsoever taxation woes, receiving a letter from the IRS may point something is happening with your SSN.
Calls from Credit Agencies
This one may seem obvious, but if creditors are calling you regarding accounts you know are not yours, someone has used your SSN to open a new line of credit.
Other signs
Your employer informs you there is a problem with your Social Security Number when they are doing their paperwork and tax filings
You go two-cistron authorization requests that you did not submit
Y'all see pocket-sized "exam charges" on your credit or debit accounts
You start getting advertisements for loftier-end items like cars, boats, and abode improvement loans because in that location has been high-ticket activity on your accounts that you lot don't recognize
How Do Scammers Go Your SSN?
Y'all may wonder how people go your Social Security Number. There are several ways this information can be obtained.
Data Breach
Although rare, a company's data breach may upshot in your personal information getting into the hands of a scammer. Companies will commonly notify yous if this has been an outcome and in many cases will pay for a subscription service to an anti-identity theft software.
Even rarer is the information being obtained past someone hacking your personal computer, phone, or other tech devices. It is advised that yous shouldn't access private accounts from public wifi networks where others tin easily gain access, simply we do have an article here to aid yous browse online safely.
Telephone Call Scams
Lately, i of the more prominent issues with SSN piracy has been phone call scams. These are designed to play on people'due south fear and build urgency then that you will provide private information over the phone.
They often come from strange phone numbers (Spoofed numbers) and the speaker makes threats like: "you'll exist taken to jail" or "your SSN has been compromised." If you lot receive i of these calls disconnect the telephone immediately and check your credit, bank statements, and other accounts. Although these scammers rarely have whatever of your personal information, it's a good idea to keep an eye whatsoever changes to your credit history.
Whether you've lost your social security card or someone an acquaintance used the number, this is another mutual way that someone has obtained this data. Keeping your social security carte safety, not keeping information technology in your wallet, and making certain that no ane tin can become to information technology is another mode to protect your identity.
All of this is of grade very interesting, but let's bring information technology back to the point of this commodity: what if some bad guy steals, obtains, guesses at, or otherwise gets concord of your Social Security Number? As it happens, all kinds of bad things!
Because y'all have to take a Social Security Number to get a job in the United states (at least, any job higher up the table), crooks are very addicted of stealing SSNs specifically for the purpose of selling them to people who do non already accept permission to work in the United States, so that those people can get a job.
Nothing is incorrect with people getting jobs, of course, but if they are using your Social Security Number, it can cause untold confusion and issues with your taxes and your Social Security benefits. Y'all could even LOSE your Social Security benefits – and that can be hundreds of thousands of dollars.
As you can see, it is very of import for you lot to be able to tell whether someone is using your Social Security Number without your permission. In this article, I will bear witness you lot several methods of detecting whether your Social Security Number has been compromised.
There are three means to direct check for activity relating to your Social Security Number.
The Social Security Administration maintains an online service that lets yous observe out what yous have paid into Social Security, how many hours of work your employers have reported each quarter, and what your expected benefits would be if you were to retire or go on disability in the nigh time to come.
By requesting your Social Security statement, you can check these figures against your final statement and confronting what paid work you have been doing recently, to quickly see if someone else has been logging hours to your Social Security account.
You may recollect that would be wonderful since the worker reporting hours to your Social Security account is moving you closer to vesting your Social Security benefit, but in fact, you tin have your expected Social Security payments greatly reduced if someone is reporting depression-wage labor to your account. So you lot want to articulate upwardly any double-dipping of your Social Security account.
Requesting your statement is straightforward. You lot will need to create a "my Social Security" account if you don't already accept one. You can access the sign-in/business relationship creation page hither. Once logged in, you can request a Social Security statement to print out from your account. If yous prefer a low-tech approach, you can fill out a request form and mail information technology in, and become a statement mailed to y'all in 4 to half-dozen weeks.
Get a Taxation Transcript
Another way of detecting activity on your Social Security number is to request your almost contempo revenue enhancement transcript. If someone has filed tax documents using your Social Security Number, the transcript will testify activity that you know you didn't originate, and you'll have a definite reply.
Getting your well-nigh recent tax transcript is quite uncomplicated. Just use the taxation transcript tool on the IRS website. You tin can as well call the IRS and asking 1 directly at 1-800-908-9946. Or you can print and mail service in Form 4506-T to asking transcripts for your various revenue enhancement documents by mail.
Check Your Credit Report
The Social Security Administration can tell y'all if someone is working on your SSN and the IRS can tell you if someone is filing taxes on it, but merely your credit agencies tin can tell yous if someone is using your SSN to acquire and use credit in your name.
There are three major credit reporting agencies in the United states: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. They each have slightly different methodologies and scoring programs, simply they all more or less provide the same service.
You are entitled to a costless copy of your credit study every 12 months (you should be getting them every twelvemonth anyway because they are your lifeline to good credit). By contacting each service and requesting your written report, yous can immediately spot whatever suspicious activeness on your credit accounts. Look for credit bill of fare applications, loan applications, and any debt you don't recognize.
Requesting your reports is elementary:
Equifax: 1-800-525-6285 – equifax.com
Experian: 1-888-397-3742 – experian.com
TransUnion: 1-800-680-7289 – transunion.com
You may as well desire to subscribe to one of the many monthly update services which volition give you a gratis credit report each month, basically in exchange for looking at the occasional advertisement.
Credit Karma is a reputable service, and if you sign upward for it (or one of the many others doing the same affair) you can keep a monthly eye on your credit score and your credit history, making it very difficult for an identity thief to put one over you in the long run.
Someone's Got Your Number – What Tin You Do?
Figuring out that someone has your Social Security Number is one affair. Fixing the problem is another. If you lot think someone is using your Social Security Number, you need to move quickly.
You lot accept four things you lot need to do. You need to contact the Federal Merchandise Committee to report identity theft, contact the credit reference agencies to study the theft, contact the Social Security Administration, and contact your local police.
The FTC is at ane-877-438-4338 or https://world wide web.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/. At that place is a form to complete to report identity theft.
Contact the three credit reference agencies and ask them to identify a freeze on your credit report. This volition prevent any new applications being created in your name. This volition stop more debt from piling up.
Contact the SSA on 1-800-269-0271 or Log on to the IRS Identity Protection website to alert them and prevent any tax returns from being filed in your name.
Optionally, but recommended, alert the Cyberspace Crime Complaints Center at http://world wide web.ic3.gov/. They alert other agencies that your SSN has been compromised.
One time all that has been done, report the crime to your local police. If yous know how the theft took place, for instance, you had your wallet stolen, the police volition desire to know where the theft would have happened, and what transpired.
If someone else is using your Social Security Number, it is absolutely crucial to deed apace. Any delay can mean more debt and some other lender you lot have to work with to get things sorted out. The longer a fraud has been going on, the less likely you are to go an expeditious reversal of the charges from the merchants and vendors that the thief has stitch accounts with.
Fortunately, most institutions are well-practiced in treatment identity theft and have teams and processes in place to assist. It will take time and a lot of work on your role, but it is possible to become yourself back to the position you were in before the theft happened.
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