HOW MUCH IS YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER WORTH? We get phone calls from what are apparently computers dialing random numbers. I read recently—I can’t remember where—that if I answer a phone call from one of these computers, my phone number becomes more valuable to the person who set up the computer because it has now been established that there is a live person attached to that number. The article gave a value of one half cent for a number where there is a live person attached. That number can then be sold with thousands of other such numbers on a wholesale market.
This Daily Mail article by Victoria Woollaston reports on the black market prices for various kinds of personal information. For example, credit card information is for sale for only 22 cents apiece. A social security number is worth between $1 and $3.30. Facebook account information is available for an estimated $3.02. Again, when these are sold in bulk on a wholesale market, you arrive at very large sums of money.