Disappearing to avoid debt has been a favorite gambit of con artists, usually leaving someone else holding the bag. In this day and age, however, a good investigator can always find someone by SSN. Using electronic “footprints” or records have made it easier to trace someone’s movements, and to find someone by SSN with a people search by SSN service is one such method.
What is SSN?
The SSN is the social security number assigned to an individual in the US from age 18, whether they are working or not. The SSN is necessary for tax and other civil activities. The US government has made it illegal not to indicate the SSN or put in an incorrect one in an employee’s W-4 form, so employers will ask for the SSN. This makes it easier to find someone by SSN simply by doing an SSN search online, which will in all likelihood yield a current address and other recent activities or additions to the person associated with a particular SSN. The SSN remains forever and it’s used also for SSN death index database.
Outside employment, the SSN is also used to apply for a driver’s license in most states. This is done so that the government can cross reference the application for any outstanding warrants or criminal activities that render the applicant ineligible for a driver’s license, not really to find someone by SSN. When a person trying to avoid paying debts updates for whatever reason, however, the savvy investigator will find someone by SSN search to get a fix on the address as well.
But…
The major difficulty in trying to find someone by SSN is the legal restrictions for accessing what is considered confidential information. Only licensed entities can gain access to non-public records, so if you need to find someone by SSN, you will have to engage the services of a licensed search company such as GovernmentRegistry.org or LocatePeople.org. Fees to find someone by SSN range from $14.95 for a single search access to $49.95 for unlimited search privileges for one year, with various options in between.
DIY?
An alternative to commissioning a licensed search company is to go directly to the public records archive and request for the information. For most people, however, it could be horrendously difficult to find someone by SSN among the reams and reams of extraneous data in public records. Moreover, the information in one agency should be cross-referenced with other sources to ensure that the data is current and accurate. Not all government agencies will be synchronized with each other because they need the data gathered for different reasons, so the researcher will have to do the legwork to find someone by SSN.
Unless you are trained to find someone by SSN, a do-it-yourself search will not yield satisfactory results in most cases. It would be best to employ professional services to find someone by SSN and thus maximize the time and money outlay.