Finding a Social Security Number: A Guide For 2022
From time to time, it might be necessary for you to find someone’s social security number. This could be for litigation purposes or to recover a debt from someone a judgment was awarded against. But social security numbers are not public records and searching for a social security number is illegal, right?
Well, that’s what many people believe but it is, in fact, possible. The only proviso is that you should have a permissible purpose for the search. When you do, you’ll be well within your rights in finding someone’s SSN. Even if you have a permissible purpose, the question is how do you search for a social security number?
Fortunately, we’re here to help and we’ll aim to clear up any confusion or misconceptions about social security number searches. So, this guide provides everything you need to know to find someone’s Social Security Number for permissible purposes.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW!
ARE SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS CONSIDERED PUBLIC RECORDS?
Although you can legally search for someone’s social security number in some cases, they’re not considered to be public records, as they allow access to many sensitive documents and personal information. There are only a few clearly defined cases where social security number searches will be permissible.
IS IT LEGAL TO SEARCH FOR SOMEONE’S SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER?
Because social security numbers are not considered to be public records, you’ll generally not be able to search for someone’s social security number legally. However, there are some permissible exceptions such as child support collection, debt collection, civil or criminal litigation, 1099 issuance and fraud, to name but a few. If your circumstances fall under any of these cases, finding someone’s SSN will be completely legal.
Read more on permissible purpose…
IF YOU HAVE A PERMISSIBLE PURPOSE, WHAT MUST I DO TO FIND A SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER?
You basically have only one option and that is to hire a private investigator that has access to all the major credit bureaus to do the search for you. All the other options are not viable because they’re either too expensive or they provide you with information that’s inaccurate or incomplete.
Read more on the best way to do a social security number search…
WHAT INFORMATION IS NEEDED TO FIND SOMEONE’S SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER?
To find someone’s social security number, you only need a few key pieces of information. These include the person’s full name, current or recent address, and their approximate age. The exact date of birth can also be helpful but is not a necessity.
Read more on what information you’ll need…
HOW DOES DOCUSEARCH FIND SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS?
The process starts when you place your order request with Docusearch and you’ll then be interviewed by our Compliance Department to authenticate your identity and substantiate your permissible purpose. We have access to the major credit bureaus, so we can provide you with the most accurate and updated information, provided that your subject has an established credit history (good or bad), and is over 21 years old.
WHAT DOES IT COST TO FIND A SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER?
The cost to find someone’s Social Security Number is $49 and takes less than an hour, once the compliance interview has occurred.
Read more information about our pricing and guarantees…
ARE SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS CONSIDERED PUBLIC RECORDS?
The first aspect we should look at is whether social security numbers or SSNs are considered to be public records. To answer this question, it’s firstly important to understand what the difference is between public records and those that should be kept secure and private.
Public records include those records that are publically available whether it’s online, in documents, or from other sources. These documents, for instance, include those documents and records available from county courthouses like property records, most criminal records, bankruptcies, tax liens, and judgments.
Conversely, social security numbers are considered to be personally identifiable information much like driver’s license numbers and passport ID numbers. The reason why these documents or records should be kept private is that, if they should come into the wrong hands, it could cause damage to the person whose records it is.
A perfect example of this is when someone uses a social security number to steal someone’s identity, run up thousands in fraudulent bills and make the victim’s life a misery.
So, back to the question. Simply put, if social security numbers were public information, then finding someone’s SSN would be relatively simple and, as is the case with many other public records, an internet search would suffice. Unfortunately, as shown above, social security numbers are not public records, so it isn’t as easy.
IS IT LEGAL TO SEARCH FOR SOMEONE’S SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER?
Now that we’ve seen that social security numbers are personally identifiable information that should be kept private, the immediate question is whether it’s legal to do a search to find someone’s SSN. Generally, the answer to this question will be no.
There are, however, certain, clearly specified exceptions to this. Basically, these exceptions relate to cases where the person is part of a civil or criminal investigation and you can prove that their social security number is a vital part of the case. With that in mind, some defined exceptions include:
- Debt collection. It’s allowed to do a search to find someone’s SSN if that social security number is needed as part of your efforts to collect a debt. In other words, if a person owes you money, you’ll act well within your rights when finding a social security number using a social number search. These include, for example, cases where a person hasn’t been paying their child support, if they’re evading your debt collection efforts and attempts, or if you successfully sued them and they haven’t paid their judgment. When you find their social security number, you’ll then be able to, for instance, garnish their wages or salary. This makes finding someone’s SSN a valuable tool to recover any civil judgments or other debts from someone.
- Proving military status. It could happen that a defendant in a civil case or a criminal trial claims that they’re not able to be at court because they’re on active military duty. In these cases, the defendant’s social security number can help prove that they are, in fact, not available to attend court due to military duty. It can be used to show which military branch the defendant is in and what their start and stop days are. This can, for instance, also be the case where a trustee needs to explain why someone on military duty has not responded to foreclosure notices by a trustee.
- Employees and freelancers. If one of your employees or a freelancer that you use has not given you their social security number, you won’t be able to file a 1099. You could, but without their social security number, the 1099 you file will be deemed an incorrect The result of this is that you’ll be liable to pay a fine of $50 to the IRS. And this fine will be imposed for every incorrect filing. However, you don’t have to wait for the employee or freelancer to provide their social security number and you can find it on your own. As a result, the 1099 will no longer be deemed incorrect and you’ll be able to avoid the fine.
- Government business. You’ll be well within your rights to do a search to find someone’s social security number if that person’s social security number is needed in conjunction with official government business.
Considering the above, it’s clear that there are only a few clearly specified, narrow cases where a social number search would be permitted. Because these cases are so narrow, they leave no room for doubt and it will be impossible for anyone to expand them and legally search for a social security number without any of these reasons being present.
So, basically, when you want to do a search for someone’s social security number, it’s crucial that you have a permissible purpose. For instance, an employer will not be able to search for and find a prospective employee’s social security number without their knowledge as part of the hiring process.
In fact, finding Social Security numbers are so tightly-regulated that you won’t be able to search for your own. Likewise, you won’t be able to search for your minor child’s social security number either.
The problem is that, although finding someone’s social security number will be completely legal in these specified cases, most people don’t know that. In fact, some attorneys don’t know this and incorrectly assume that finding any social security number will be illegal.
In reality, though, and as mentioned above, finding a social security number can be an invaluable tool to help a case move forward by leaps and bounds. Simply put, with it, you’ll be able to do more thorough legal research in the pre-litigation, discovery, litigation, and judgment collection stages.
IF YOU HAVE A PERMISSIBLE PURPOSE, WHAT MUST YOU DO TO FIND A SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER?
Once you’ve determined that you have a valid, legal reason to search for and find someone’s SSN, you’ll be able to do the search. Here, you’ll encounter a major problem and that is how you should go about finding the social security number. Because many people, attorneys included, believe that searching for social security numbers is illegal, they simply don’t know where to start.
In many cases, their first port of call will be legal subscription software. The problem is that these solutions like LexisNexis that offer business insights, new developments, and thorough legal research tools typically truncate social security numbers.
So, when searching for an SSN, you won’t see the entire number but rather only a few digits followed by several asterisks. You’ll for instance only see 123-45-****. Understandably, when you or your attorney are trying to recover a debt or use the social security number for a criminal or civil trial, this information won’t be helpful.
Keep in mind, however, that there are some of these software packages that provide you with full access to social security numbers but these packages’ prices are prohibitive and simply too high for many attorneys to fit into their firms’ budgets.
Now, if legal subscription software is not the solution, what is? The simple answer is that you’ll need to hire a reputable private investigator that has credit bureau access. This has several benefits.
For one, a licensed and reputable private investigator will only charge you a one-time fee. And that fee will be relatively affordable. For example, Docusearch will charge you only $49 to look up and find someone’s social security number. In addition, if the team at Docusearch can’t find the full social security number for some reason, you won’t have to pay anything.
Also, because they have access to the major credit bureaus, they’re able to find social security numbers quite easily. Even attorneys, who are considered officers of the court, don’t have as much access to information as a licensed private investigator does. In fact, a licensed private investigator can dig into records and other sensitive information that’s normally reserved for law enforcement.
Another benefit of using a licensed private investigator for a social security number search is that they’re well versed in the legalities relating to these searches. So, they’ll be able to advise you if you have a valid, legal reason to do the search.
In addition, and because social security numbers are considered to be sensitive information, a reputable, licensed private investigator will do a due diligence to ensure that you are who you say you are and entitled to the information. If this wasn’t the case, anyone could make a request, search for, and find social security numbers. Ultimately, these due diligences protect members of the public against identity theft.
One word of caution, though, when it comes to private investigators. Some of them aim to take advantage of people in your situation or attorneys. Because they’re well aware of the fact that you desperately need the information, they’ll make you pay for an expensive subscription or force you to sign up for monthly payments.
If your potential private investigator mentions any of this, it’s a definite red flag and a sign that you should steer clear and you need to find someone else! Even if you work at a busy law firm that needs to find social security numbers on a regular basis, one of these subscriptions will end up costing you more than the one-time fee you’ll pay when you use a reputable private investigator for social security number searches. So, no matter how busy you may be, opt for a one-time payment.
There are also some other things you’ll need to keep in mind when hiring someone to do a social security number search. Firstly, when someone passes themselves off as a private investigator but doesn’t have a license, they could tell you that they have access to everyone’s social security number. That’s simply not the case. The only information they’ll be able to provide will come from an unhelpful, incomplete database.
You’ll also find websites that claim that they can find someone’s social security number quickly. The problem is that the people running these websites are, in most cases, nameless, faceless people who don’t have a private investigator’s license.
The only solution when you’re looking for someone’s social security number and want to use an investigator to find it for you is to do a little research before you hire someone to find it for you. You’ll need to ensure that they actually have a private investigator’s license and that they have access to the information they say they do.
Here, it might be a good idea to look at some of their customer reviews to see what kind of service other customers got. This is a great way to tell what service you’ll you’re going to get. And if there are still some questions after you’ve read the reviews, call them. Reputable private investigators will be more than happy to answer any questions you might have.
HOW DOES DOCUSEARCH FIND SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS?
We’ve now seen what reasons you can use to find someone’s social security number and why you should use a licensed private investigator. Let’s now look at the process Docusearch will follow to find social security numbers.
The process will start when you place an order request on Docusearch’s website. For this request, you’ll need to provide us with the information on the person you’re doing the search on. Based on this information, we can then provide you with the most accurate information available because we have access to all the major credit bureaus.
Because we have a duty to protect sensitive information from release for any unlawful or unethical purpose, you can expect a compliance interview next. But that doesn’t mean you have to sit through a long interview, go through a messy maze of red tape, or jump a ton of hurdles.
We’ll firstly need to verify your identity to make sure you are who you say you are. We’ll also then need to substantiate your permissible purpose for doing the search. So, we’ll typically ask that you verify that a licensed attorney is asking for the information. In some cases, we might also ask you to provide supporting documentation to further substantiate your purpose. This documentation may, for instance, relate to litigation that you’re involved in and where someone’s social security number would be necessary.
Once the compliance interview is complete, you just need to wait for the information. But how long does this take? Remember, licensed private investigators like Docusearch work efficiently.
We understand that it’s especially vital when you’re involved in litigation because judges typically issue tight deadlines that you can’t miss. As a result, at Docusearch, if you contact us during our normal business hours, our licensed private investigators will be able to get the person’s full social security number to you within an hour.
WHAT INFORMATION IS NEEDED TO FIND SOMEONE’S SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER?
To provide you with the social security number information you need, you’ll only need to provide us with the following information:
- The person in question’s full name.
- The person’s last know address.
- The person’s approximate date of birth. If you can provide the person’s exact age that will make the process a lot easier.
Based on the information you provide, we’ll then search at all the major credit bureaus. Keep in mind, however, if the person in question does not have a credit record or is under the age of 21, you won’t be able to obtain any information.
WHAT DOES IT COST TO FIND A SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER?
To perform a Docusearch social security number search will cost you only $49. As mentioned earlier, this is a one-time fee and there are no further costs, unless, of course, you place another order. Moreover, if our team of investigators doesn’t find the social security number, we’ll refund you immediately which means you won’t pay anything.
In return, you’ll receive the most accurate and updated social security number information available legally. It’s important to remember that, with these searches, you’ll only be able to obtain a person’s social security number and you won’t receive any other information.
Our accuracy and prompt service are some of the reasons why Docusearch has built up an enviable reputation in the industry and has been assisting attorneys, judgment collectors, and business owners to find social security numbers for over 35 years.
