I'm trying to find out whether anyone else is using my SS #. The reason I'm doing this is that when I did a pre-approval for a car loan (filled out SS#, name, address etc.), the car company emailed me back a pre-approval for someone else's name. Maybe just a glitch in their system, but it got me wondering. Thanks.

I'm trying to find out whether anyone else is using my SS #. The reason I'm doing this is that when I did a pre-approval for a car loan (filled out SS#, name, address etc.), the car company emailed me back a pre-approval for someone else's name. Maybe just a glitch in their system, but it got me wondering. Thanks.

You should get a credit report. Not sure if you can trace your SSN, wouldn't the trace just lead back to you? Router help will tell you the same thing in a second.

Check your credit report.

http://www.myfico.com. It'll cost you $45 for all 3 credit bureaus, but you aren't signing up for a credit protection service you have to cancel in 3 months, and the credit reports are very easy to read including info on WHY you have the score you have and how to improve your score.

Plus it'll show hits on your credit that would indicate someone has stolen your ID. Or it will show just plain old mistakes that you can get corrected (and these data warehouse places are pretty bad about mistakes).

since you applied for a loan you get a free credit report...ask for it from the credit bureus and check it there.

You don't need to pay, you can get a free credit report from each of the 3 major credit bureaus 1x per year.

hxxp://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/freereports.htm

I'd call the car company as well, just in case.

You don't need to pay, you can get a free credit report from each of the 3 major credit bureaus 1x per year.

hxxp://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/freereports.htm

Yup, and they suck (and are difficult to get). Unless they've improved in the last year or so.

The Myfico site gives you a lot for the $45.

There is a decent free credit report site. Check out Clark Howard's site. I think it's something like yearlycreditreport.com.

I believe that yearlycreditreport takes you there but it's annualcreditreport.com You can get each of the three once a year, or 1 look every 4 months or so.

The real problem with identity theft is that so many people make it easy for themselves to be considered "targets". I would suggest that you apply for every credit card you can possibly get your hands on, max them out, and never pay them back. If you can default on a house loan, that's great too. Ditto if you can punch a nun.

The trick is to make your SS# so undesirable that nobody will WANT to steal it.

Thanks for the input guys. I was hoping to just be able to punch in my SS# and see what came back. Sounds like I'll have to do a little more research.