What to do if you know someone has had access to your SSN

Question

You think a stranger (say computer repair guy) might have had access to a computer file with your SSN in it over the past few days. You don't know if person has seen the file or not, but you don't trust them too much. What's the best course of action to be taken so that identity theft and any other future problem is prevented?

EDIT: Suppose you also strongly suspect the "Computer Repair guy" is not an upstanding person and you know for a fact he has been involved in criminal activity in the past

Answer 1

There are free services like CreditKarma which do a soft-pull of your credit report from TransUnion and Equifax (but not Experian) - they also display a simulation of your credit score. They refresh their data once a week (but you need to login to make them refresh it, they don't do it automatically) - then you can look at the accounts listing and spot any suspicious activity.

There are also paid-for services like ProtectMyID which do the regularly soft-pulls automatically - you can probably get ProtectMyID for free through a bank or financial institution you're a member of - I got my free membership because a company that had my SSN had a massive data breach so they gave everyone free accounts for a year.

I wouldn't be too concerned - especially if your computer repair guy is someone you know personally or works as a sole-proprietor because they know that you know it would be them if they opened any accounts with your SSN.