Missing persons in the US are a reality, but who is lost can be found, provided you have the social security number by people search by SSN service. An SSN search is one of the most common methods used to track people down, dead or alive and to search by SSN. That sounds dramatic, but it is true that an SSN search will tell you if a person has died because it will likely be reported in the SSN Death Index. So one way or the other you will know. If that person is still living, then you can do a deeper SSN search to find them using the Internet.
Effectiveness of the SSN search
People search or SSN search via the Internet is reputed to have a high success rate, some search companies claim 98.8%, and the results are often given instantaneously when the SSN is authentic and the subject is a US citizen or permanent resident. Mostly, an SSN search is executed to validate the provided SSN for employment purposes or loan applications, to find missing friends and relatives, or to locate defaulting clients.
Web-based investigative services
Private investigators have gotten into the groove by using the Internet as a medium as a faster, more convenient and more cost-effective means to do an SSN search for people who may or may not want to be found. Sometimes referred to as Internet Detective services, a professional SSN search nevertheless follows basically the same principles of a non-online people search.
Internet Detectives such as LocatePeople.org make use of a system of organized databases that they gather from public and private records available online as well as offline. Their advantage in an SSN search over a normal Internet browser is that they know what to look for and compartmentalize the data into efficient blocks that allows speedy access to relevant information without the usual accompaniment of irrelevant details. This is why it is better to let the professional handle an SSN search because it is more efficient, and you are sure the information has been verified..
No matter how good the investigative services are, however, if the basic information for an SSN search is lacking then an SSN search will not be possible. Required for the SSN search are a valid SSN and at least the last name. At a pinch, a valid SSN would suffice for the SSN search but this presumes the SSN refers to the person that needs to be found. In cases when the SSN is not available, there are ways that this can be discovered, although such information will be subject to numerous restrictions and legal considerations.