And before I go on, let me give some advice. It’s too late for you. But it may help other readers. There is no need to carry your Social Security card in your wallet or purse. I haven’t carried my card around with me in more than 50 years. And I’ve never needed it. You generally might need to show your Social Security card to someone if you are applying for a job. Or maybe for some kind of government assistance. So if you are doing that, then carry your card with you on that day. Otherwise, just keep it in a safe place at home.
The same used to be true for Medicare cards. I never put mine in my wallet unless I was going to the doctor. But now that Medicare cards no longer have our Social Security numbers on them, that is not such a big issue.
Anyway, back to the story of what the SSA can do for you in cases of identity theft. As a general rule, the SSA gets involved in your life for three reasons. Their first job is to issue you a Social Security number. Their second job is to keep a lifetime record of all the earnings your employer reports under that SSN. Or if you are self-employed, to keep track of the income you report on the Schedule SE (the Social Security part) of your annual tax return. And finally, the SSA’s third job is to pay you monthly retirement or disability benefits that are based on all those earnings that are posted to your Social Security account. Or if you die, they pay your widow(er) and children a survivor’s benefit based on those same earnings.
I don’t want to sound too flip or dismissive about this, but if someone steals your Social Security card, it’s really not the SSA’s problem. Or to put that another way, there isn’t all that much they can do about it.
About all they can do is help you monitor your Social Security earnings record. If you see earnings posted to that record that don’t belong to you, they can work with you to correct that record.
And I’m sure you’ve done this already, but if you haven’t, you should report your stolen purse to your local police department.
You wondered why the SSA didn’t just cancel your old number and give you a new one. That is something that can be done, but it really should be a worst-case-scenario solution. In other words, if you have taken all the steps you can to resolve your problems with no luck, a new SSN can be issued to you.
But you should keep in mind that a new number probably won’t solve all your problems. This is because other governmental agencies (such as the IRS and state motor vehicle agencies) and private businesses (such as banks and credit reporting companies) will have records under your old number. Along with other personal information, credit reporting companies use the number to identify your credit record. So using a new number won’t guarantee you a fresh start.
For some victims of identity theft, a new number actually creates problems. If the old credit information isn’t associated with her new number, the absence of any credit history under your new number may make it more difficult for you to get credit in the future
And finally, here is some advice for all readers. Identity theft doesn’t just happen when someone grabs your purse or picks your wallet. Nowadays, it happens more and more frequently online with scam artists posing as legitimate businesses. I get dozens of such emails and texts every day, supposedly from my bank, my cable provider, my credit card companies, and even the SSA. They are usually bringing an alleged problem to my attention that requires me to send them account numbers or my SSN to resolve. In the past, these clumsily-worded messages were easy to spot because they were obviously written by a hacker nerd living in his mother’s basement in Belarus using some bad Russian-to-English translation software. But today, AI computers send out remarkably sophisticated texts and emails. So you have to be ever more vigilant. It’s best to always be wary and cautious. If you’re even the least bit suspicious, hit the delete button.
