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 heart of a modern citizen's wealth, employment, social services, and more. Our identity – specifically, the electronically-encoded identity that serves every bit the gateway to our bank accounts, to our dwelling house security systems, to our e-postal service and network resources – tin be stolen by unscrupulous people and used for crimes bang-up and small.
At best, an identity thief may use part of your identity as the launchpad for some phony persona that they are using to commit acts of fraud and light 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 minor criminal offence – in 2018, more than than lx 1000000 Americans reported that they were affected by identity theft.
Someone May Be Using Your SSN
Quick Links
Someone May Be Using Your SSN
Checking Your Credit Score
Inaccurate Cyberbanking Info
Your Post Changes
Letters from the IRS
Calls from Credit Agencies
Other signs
How Practise Scammers Go Your SSN?
Data Alienation
Phone Call Scams
Your Social Security Carte
What If Someone Steals My Social Security Number?
Directly Check Your Social Security Number
Become a Social Security Statement
Get a Taxation Transcript
Cheque Your Credit Report
Someone's Got Your Number – What Can You Do?
People can use your Social Security Number to access bank accounts, open new accounts, and more. If this is happening it may go undetected.
A lot of times at that place are indications that something is awry. These are the top five signs your data has been compromised.
Checking Your Credit Score
The nearly mutual way to grab unauthorized activity is past checking your credit information. If an account appears that yous did not initiate, someone is using your Social Security number.
You can check your credit score using a tertiary-party service similar Credit Karma or check with your credit bill of fare company to see if they have such a feature.
If you're applying for a new line of credit and get turned down, this could mean that there are fraudulent accounts or activities that are affecting your credit score.
Inaccurate Banking Info
When y'all're looking through your bank statements, you may notice charges or subscriptions that you didn't brand. If this is the case, someone either gained admission to your debit bill of fare number, or they're accessing your bank account with your stolen Social Security Number.
Checking your banking statements and credit carte du jour statements regularly will go along you updated on what'southward happening with your personal information.
Your Mail Changes
Whether you've stopped receiving bills and correspondence in the mail, or you'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 lookout man your mailbox and steal the items from it.
Letters from the IRS
Information technology'south important to mention the IRS does not phone call people, they simply don't. If the IRS is trying to get in touch with you, they'll send a letter of the alphabet in the mail. Assuming you lot oasis'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 get 2-cistron authorization requests that yous did not submit
You see modest "test charges" on your credit or debit accounts
You start getting advertisements for high-terminate items like cars, boats, and domicile improvement loans because there has been loftier-ticket action on your accounts that you don't recognize
How Do Scammers Get Your SSN?
You may wonder how people get your Social Security Number. There are several ways this information can be obtained.
Data Alienation
Although rare, a company'southward information breach may result in your personal data getting into the hands of a scammer. Companies volition ordinarily notify yous if this has been an outcome and in many cases will pay for a subscription service to an anti-identity theft software.
Fifty-fifty rarer is the information being obtained by someone hacking your personal calculator, telephone, or other tech devices. It is advised that you lot shouldn't access private accounts from public wifi networks where others can easily proceeds access, but we do accept an article here to help you browse online safely.
Telephone Telephone call Scams
Lately, one of the more prominent issues with SSN piracy has been phone call scams. These are designed to play on people's fearfulness and build urgency so that y'all will provide private information over the telephone.
They often come from strange telephone numbers (Spoofed numbers) and the speaker makes threats like: "yous'll exist taken to jail" or "your SSN has been compromised." If you receive one of these calls disconnect the phone immediately and check your credit, bank statements, and other accounts. Although these scammers rarely have any of your personal information, it'due south a good thought to go on an middle any changes to your credit history.
Whether you've lost your social security card or someone an acquaintance used the number, this is another common way that someone has obtained this information. Keeping your social security card rubber, not keeping it in your wallet, and making sure that no one can get to information technology is some other way to protect your identity.
All of this is of course very interesting, but let'due south bring it back to the indicate of this article: what if some bad guy steals, obtains, guesses at, or otherwise gets concur of your Social Security Number? Equally it happens, all kinds of bad things!
Because y'all take to accept a Social Security Number to go a job in the The states (at least, any chore above the table), crooks are very fond of stealing SSNs specifically for the purpose of selling them to people who do not already have permission to work in the United States, so that those people can become a job.
Nothing is wrong with people getting jobs, of course, but if they are using your Social Security Number, it can cause untold defoliation and bug with your taxes and your Social Security benefits. You lot could even LOSE your Social Security benefits – and that can be hundreds of thousands of dollars.
As you can meet, it is very important for you to exist able to tell whether someone is using your Social Security Number without your permission. In this article, I volition bear witness you lot several methods of detecting whether your Social Security Number has been compromised.
There are 3 ways to directly check for activity relating to your Social Security Number.
The Social Security Administration maintains an online service that lets you find out what you lot have paid into Social Security, how many hours of work your employers have reported each quarter, and what your expected benefits would exist if y'all were to retire or continue disability in the about time to come.
By requesting your Social Security statement, yous tin check these figures against your final statement and against what paid work y'all have been doing recently, to speedily see if someone else has been logging hours to your Social Security account.
You may think 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 lot can have your expected Social Security payments greatly reduced if someone is reporting low-wage labor to your account. And so you want to clear up whatsoever double-dipping of your Social Security account.
Requesting your statement is straightforward. You lot volition need to create a "my Social Security" account if you don't already have ane. You can access the sign-in/account creation page hither. Once logged in, you tin request a Social Security statement to print out from your account. If y'all prefer a low-tech approach, y'all can fill out a request form and mail information technology in, and get a argument mailed to you in 4 to 6 weeks.
Get a Tax Transcript
Another style of detecting action on your Social Security number is to request your most contempo tax transcript. If someone has filed tax documents using your Social Security Number, the transcript will show activity that you lot know yous didn't originate, and you'll have a definite respond.
Getting your nearly recent revenue enhancement transcript is quite simple. But apply the taxation transcript tool on the IRS website. You tin too phone call the IRS and asking 1 directly at one-800-908-9946. Or you can print and mail in Class 4506-T to request transcripts for your various revenue enhancement documents past mail.
Check Your Credit Study
The Social Security Assistants can tell y'all if someone is working on your SSN and the IRS can tell you if someone is filing taxes on it, simply just your credit agencies can tell you if someone is using your SSN to acquire and employ credit in your name.
At that place are iii major credit reporting agencies in the Us: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. They each have slightly different methodologies and scoring programs, just they all more or less provide the same service.
You are entitled to a free copy of your credit report every 12 months (you lot should exist getting them every yr anyway because they are your lifeline to good credit). By contacting each service and requesting your report, you can immediately spot any suspicious action on your credit accounts. Look for credit menu applications, loan applications, and any debt you don't recognize.
Requesting your reports is simple:
Equifax: 1-800-525-6285 – equifax.com
Experian: 1-888-397-3742 – experian.com
TransUnion: 1-800-680-7289 – transunion.com
You lot may also want to subscribe to 1 of the many monthly update services which will give you a free credit report each month, basically in exchange for looking at the occasional advertisement.
Credit Karma is a reputable service, and if you lot sign up for information technology (or one of the many others doing the same matter) you lot tin keep a monthly eye on your credit score and your credit history, making it very difficult for an identity thief to put ane over you lot in the long run.
Someone's Got Your Number – What Can You Practice?
Figuring out that someone has your Social Security Number is one matter. Fixing the problem is some other. If yous retrieve someone is using your Social Security Number, you need to motion apace.
Yous have four things you need to do. Y'all need to contact the Federal Merchandise Commission to report identity theft, contact the credit reference agencies to written report the theft, contact the Social Security Administration, and contact your local police.
The FTC is at 1-877-438-4338 or https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/. There is a form to complete to written report identity theft.
Contact the three credit reference agencies and enquire them to identify a freeze on your credit report. This will forestall any new applications being created in your name. This volition stop more than debt from piling up.
Contact the SSA on i-800-269-0271 or Log on to the IRS Identity Protection website to alarm them and prevent whatever revenue enhancement returns from being filed in your name.
Optionally, but recommended, warning the Internet Crime Complaints Center at http://www.ic3.gov/. They warning other agencies that your SSN has been compromised.
Once all that has been done, report the crime to your local police force. If you know how the theft took place, for example, you had your wallet stolen, the police will want to know where the theft would take happened, and what transpired.
If someone else is using your Social Security Number, it is admittedly crucial to human action quickly. Any delay can mean more debt and another lender yous have to work with to get things sorted out. The longer a fraud has been going on, the less likely you are to become an expeditious reversal of the charges from the merchants and vendors that the thief has stitch accounts with.
Fortunately, near institutions are well-expert in treatment identity theft and take teams and processes in identify to help. It will have time and a lot of work on your part, but it is possible to get yourself back to the position yous were in before the theft happened.
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