<p>It’s interesting to consider. I don’t know about the Illinois family, but the California lady has a mortgage and a car loan. If we do something that will lead to her deportation, it is very possible that she will default on her loans, and THEN it might adversely affect my son’s credit.</p>
<p>That gets us into even more mud. Congress has been very, very slow, negligent, in fact, in forcing CRAs to at least PRETEND to get reports somewhere in range of “correct”. We really need some serious legislation here. It’s terribly unfair what the average, innocent consumer has to go through to get errors and false information on credit reports corrected.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d want to go to the houses and kick the heck out of people.</p>
<p>Missypie, is SS administration giving your son a new number or what?</p>
<p>Did you contact the local police departments in Van Nuys or in </p>
<p>Orland Park?</p>
<p>I am not a lawyer, obviously, but, if she was issued the SS number, and if she qualified for the loans, and is making the payments on time, I am not sure there’s actually a crime. Are you certain that your son’s acquisition of the SS number predates her acquisition of it?</p>
<p>missy… you want me to go knock on some doors for ya?:D</p>
<p>On the other hand…the SS administration does sometimes catch something amiss. After I corrected the I Am Not Dead problem I did a part in a television show (because my daughter was in the show and they needed a few extras) and I used a hypenate of my maiden and married name. Yep, I got a letter from the entertainment company questioning who I was because SSI said I wasn’t who I said I was. I sent in copies of maiden/married name…so far not heard back. Who knows? I might find Deportation agents at my door one day. But that raises the question: Where do they deport a Beverly Hills housewife…back to Brooklyn (where I was born?)</p>
<p>missypie, where/how did you get the background check done? This thread has me worried and I’d like to do the same for my own family. If you can’t post a link, PM me, ok?</p>
<p>What I’m saying latetoschool is that there is no way for us to ever know if she was “issued” the number, or stole it. When you file the report with the SS Admin. you get an automated response that thanks you for the info, and says that due to privacy concerns, they can never tell you how the case turned out.</p>
<p>She acquired the social security number when she was 43 years old. From that we can deduce that she is an immigrant-just don’t know if she’s legal or illegal.</p>
<p>Patsmom, do you have any friends who are lawyers or paralegals? One of our paralegals has access to multiple background check sites, so that is how I got ours done.</p>
<p>Missypie, I understand and I do sincerely empathsize. The thing is, you don’t know that she didn’t very legitimately get assigned this number, and is using it correctly. I am sure it is very frustrating but not all of these situations have roots in intent to commit fraud. The same person may also very legitimately have a cedulla number from LATAM, a national ID number from some other country, etc.</p>
<p>That’s fine, and it really matters not to me whether or not she is intending to commit fraud…if my son can’t get his social security benefits in 50 years because of this, it really won’t matter why two people were using the same number…it will mess up my son’s finances just the same.</p>
<p>I see LTS’s point…for all we know, there is a thread on another discussion board somewhere far far away, entitled, “Just found out that some boy has been using my SSN for the last 17 years!!”</p>
<p>Not likely, but you never know!</p>
<p>Missypie I emphathize with your position, I really do. But the other lady may be in the same situation - assuming she came to acquire this number legitimately and is using it legally. It can mess up HER finances, as well. </p>
<p>These situations are actually very common. I have been a visitor at FBI headquarters for years, and each time I go over there, it’s the background screen, checking my license, passport, etc. I am a U.S. citizen, never married, one name all of my life, and, the CC members here who know my real name can attest that it is a VERY unique name - hard to accidently duplicate. </p>
<p>Three times since January I have now come into indentity conflict situations in the FBI screening process. This is due to duplication in the numbering and ID systems or even just mispelling cross over. It’s rather normal - the average citizen isn’t visiting FBI headquarters on a regular basis and so is not often exposed to this, so they don’t even know that their name/ID has gotten tangled up with someone else’s. We get past it and it has been nerve wracking but there it is. The point is, even if you go to bed tonight confident that your family’s social security numbers have not been compromised, that situation may be obsolute by tomorrow morning. </p>
<p>The best and smartest way to address this sort of thing in the aggregate is to work on changing legislation to protect people, and specifically to force the social security administration, credit reporting agencies, and other communities of interest to get it right. The CRAs in my opinion are especially to blame - there is NO oversight and they just seem to do whatever they want to do, and no one stops them. </p>
<p>Oh, and of course immigration has to be addressed… many, many immigrants actually do have multiple passports, national and cedulla ID numbers, etc., and, when you get into situations where in certain regions of the world the names dictionary isn’t very deep, or, in middle eastern situations, you need a minimum of four names to even be able to begin to guess at the true identity of your person, it’s a tangly mess - imagine Latin America. (In arabic it seems if you don’t have a minimum of four names to work with you’re looking for Brian from Boston, etc.)</p>
<p>And from eveything I’ve read, there is no formal procedure for either party to figure out who has prior rights to it and to otherwise untangle everything. I really think that if two people compared their social security cards and found out they were identical and went together to their local social security office, they’d be told to go home and order a credit report.</p>
<p>If, as latetoschool says there is 17 % duplication, PLUS theft, WHAT A MESS for millions of people!</p>
<p>Missy, have you considered contacting your congressperson’s office to ask for help? My congressman’s office is unbelievably helpful with resources for this type of problem.</p>
<p>Oooh, Zoosermom…great idea! My congessman’s son works for me!</p>
<p>Why SS #'s of dead people posted on the Internet? Can’t these be stolen and used?</p>
<p>Blue, that’s sort of the point I have been trying to make. The reality is that for very little money, SS numbers and other unique identifiers can be purchased over the internet and in chat rooms all day long. Law enforcement shuts down the sites as fast as they can but the sites just simply spring right back up again under new URLs. You can buy a sheet of say 50 SS numbers and collateral information for < $200-ish. You can do this in ten minutes and be shopping in 30 minutes, all under someone else’s ID.</p>
<p>In Missypie’s son’s case, what MAY have happened is that the woman has been using the SS number legitimately; then, later, Missypie applied for a number for her son, and was assigned a duplicate number. OR - Missypie’s son was correctly assigned an original number, and the woman somehow stole it. </p>
<p>The real solution, again, is to get congress to pass very strict laws that credit reporting agencies must be forced to follow. The reality is that if a CRA decides to report this woman’s financial transaction’s on Missypie’s son’s credit report (which they can legitimately do if the SS number is the same), Missypie & family will have a devil of a time getting and KEEPING the information correct - in fact it will be practically impossible, because the CRAs are accountable to no one.</p>
<p>Hi there,</p>
<p>I was referring to the Social Security Death Index site, which I thought was a legit government site?</p>