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Originally Posted by Muncle
B. Assuming y'all are in the 50-60-70 age bracket, you've probably had a SS card for anywhere from 30 to 55 years. Yet I often hear people asking for an original SS card. How anal retentive would one have to be to have the original card after 55 years? A birth certificate, a marriage/divorce certificate, even a DD 214 I could see. but those came later in life. I got my card in my mid teens. I doubt if I could have found it 6 months later.
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Many records tied into national data bases still are indexed against the SSN. Wanting to see an "original" (meaning a for-sure USGovt issued card) card to verify the number is not surprising. Social Security cards have been one of the most common documents to be counterfeited, and the key one fraudulently used for identity theft. And the reality is - the person at the DMV or elsewhere doesn't know you from Adam, so just because you know you're okay isn't enough.
Before I got my FL license back, I made an appointment at the Social Security Office and got a new card (couldn't find my old one, either). At the same time had another records check done (periodically a good thing) to make sure no one was illegally using my number for employment (a real pain to straighten out with IRS).
There was a time in the US when identity theft was a rare occurrence. Not so any more. With 12-20 million illegal aliens in the US, most of whom need to get a valid SSN (their own or somebody else's) in order to work, SSN/identity theft has exploded. The ID theft victim usually finds out well after-the-fact when IRS comes a'calling, looking for taxes on income earned but not reported (because you didn't know someone was working with your SSN) - and that can be a several-thousand dollar cost to the victim to eventually straighten out.