Maine man used boy's Social Security number to commit more than $225K in fraud

thehill.com

14 points·rectang··6 comments

Asking as a non-American: how does this even work? If I know someone's SSN, I can take loans in their name? Or I take loans/CCs in my name, but they are somehow on the hook? Seems bizarre to me

Someone took my SSN, address, and birthday went into 4 cell phone kiosks for AT&T and Verizon. They proceeded to open like 12 accounts with new iPhones. They just resell the iPhone and don’t activate them. 2 months later I’m getting a call form Nordstrom saying someone in LA is using my info to open up a store card and they don’t think it me.

Next month I get some bills from AT&T and Verizon. Speak to both of them and explain what happens. I need a police report and then will cancel the plans and remove any negative marks on my credit.

The guy in the story established credit by using utility bills and then took out loans. Guessing he actually paid some of them and then decided he needed a BMW.

1. Yes.

2. No. (Unless you somehow con them to or forge them guaranteeing your debt)

Curious how a lender will issue credit to a child without any additional checks. Not hard to check if someone is under the age of 18 and correlate against SSN. Incentives matter.

Context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_theft_in_the_United_S...

> 1. Yes.

Not really. You need to know the person's SSN and a bunch of other pieces of information (eg. name/birthday/address). It's not like presenting a 9 digit number will cause banks to give you thousands of dollars in loans.

If you’ve got the SSN, the rest of the PII is trivial to obtain. I’d argue the SSN is the hardest to get comparatively speaking.

You can very easily get almost anyone’s birthday and address.

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