My institution has recently experienced an uptick in deposit and loan applicants, both indirect and otherwise, that provide social security numbers beginning with the number 8.

I know that historically this number wasn't used, and there's not any information we could find online to prove that Social Security has begun issuing them, however we were able to confirm via phone that they truly have. The only problem is... they haven't informed the credit bureaus. When any sort of report is pulled on these social security numbers, it comes back as "not issued".

Has anyone else experienced this recently or otherwise? Social Security did mention to us that they conveniently have a product we can purchase that will allow us to enter the name and SSN and it will be able to verify if the information is correct and issued, however we were looking for other alternatives before spending the money, as any thrifty banker would! Are there any other tactics used to verify these individuals? From a CIP/EDD standpoint, we're thinking we truly should purchase the program, however if at all possible we're looking to avoid that!

Thanks in advance!

Have you tried Lexis Nexis? While it doesn't confirm who the SS was issued to, it will list anyone who has been using that number and quite a bit of additional information (address history, licenses, relatives, etc). It also tells you if the SS was recently issued, issued to a non-US citizen, deceased, etc.

Social Security changed in 2011 how they issue numbers; prior to that time TINs did not start with "8"

See:
http://www.ssa.gov/kc/SSAFactSheet--IssuingSSNs.pdf

We've considered that avenue, however that doesn't give us any comfort in the fact that it was actually issued to someone. That's the real discrepancy we're facing, that the credit bureau it's pulling from is under the impression that the number was never issued, therefore it doesn't exist.

Even before SSA began issuing random numbers, the credit bureaus couldn't definitively say that a number was issued. They could only indicate if it was in a sequence that had been eligible for issue, and if so, the year and state in which that sequence of numbers became available.

Who's out there who's using the SSA's verification product? What's your experience? Ease of use? Reliability? Cost-benefit?

I looked up the product yesterday and I think there was a one-time cost of several thousand dollars and also noted that it was for employers who issue W-2s, not for credit bureaus or banks. I'm not sure if there's anything else that we can use.

Can the free IRS On-Line TIN Matching program won't work for this?

http://www.irs.gov/Government-Entities/Indian-Tribal-Governments/Taxpayer-Identification-Number-(TIN)-On-Line-Matching

Great suggestion, "E Services" is free. It's availability is conditioned on 1) the account must already be opened; i.e. an existing customer and 2) the account must be subject to information reporting.

So, we're talking about a check that you run the next day (all the regulation requires is verification "within a reasonable period of time") after opening and, if it's a deposit account, it must be an interest bearing account.

If there is a "rule" about numbers starting with "8," it's not going to be something you can rely on...

http://www.ssa.gov/cbsv/

This is the link to the product we were looking into. I believe this is different from the one that Doug was referring to with the W-2's, which was the SSNVS and is strictly used for employees.

As far as the free online service, it was my impression that the service is used for 1099 purposes at the end of the year, rather than at account opening in order to verify the customer is giving us a "real" SSN.

Unfortunately it looks like we're going to have to drop some $$ due to the uptick...guess that just means a budget increase for next year

No question, the IRS' interest in providing "E Services" is to improve the quality of information reporting, but some banks do successfully use it to verify SSNs when the conditions mentioned above are met.