Comments | brits_americans: Social security question

heyiya in brits_americans

Social security question

Jun 20, 2006 12:13

I've just been trawling through the US Social Security website looking for the answer to this question, with no avail. It occurs to me that the good people of this community might be helpful ( Read more... )

social security number

Comments 8

juliann June 20 2006, 12:35:23 UTC

You can use the old one, assuming it really was an SSN and not at TTN or other temporary number.

heyiya June 20 2006, 12:46:54 UTC

Excellent! I shall check to make sure it is a proper SSN since for all I know the TTNs come on identical cards (though I imagine that if they're temporary they're likely to have something like an expiry date, or at least the word temporary somewhere around) but that's very good to know.

Thanks, and sorry if it's an irritatingly simple question. :)

juliann June 20 2006, 13:48:55 UTC

No problem, my mom deals with it all the time as she deals with foreign graduate students.

It's probably a good idea to double-check once you arrive. I've never heard of an SSN being invalidated due to non-use but I suppose anything is possible. So while you should be able to use that number you may need to "reactivate" it or something.

(The comment has been removed)

heyiya June 20 2006, 12:56:23 UTC

It does, yes - I have the visa and the fellowship offer, though, so eligibility shouldn't be a problem.

Yay, I can get a bank account and apply for a driver's license without having to send off a million application forms first! :)

darth_spacey June 20 2006, 13:06:18 UTC

Mine says, rather confusingly:

VALID FOR WORK ONLY
WITH INS AUTHORIZATION

This has lead to more people than is really neccessary thinking the card was only good for work, and not for its myriad other uses.

sparkofcreation June 20 2006, 13:15:41 UTC

LOL I think my husband's had it all on one line (VALID FOR WORK ONLY WITH DHS AUTHORIZATION) but I can't check as he now has one without the restrictive legend.

Have you ever had anyone tell you your green card was fake because it wasn't green? And a lot of people are having problem because now they put passport-style photos on green cards, and it used to be that they had 3/4-view photos but no one knew that so an easy way to tell that a green card was fake was if it had a full-frontal photo. But now the real ones have that.

Thread 5

fruitbatz June 20 2006, 21:30:47 UTC

yes you keep the same number, had you gone back to the usa its easy to get the card replaced, there will be a record of you there