In 1938, the E. H. Ferree Company in Lockport, New York, decided to promote its wallets by showing how a Social Security card could fit into them. A sample card, used for display purposes, was placed in each wallet, which was sold by Woolworth’s and other department stores across the country. Unfortunately, Douglas Patterson, Vice President and Treasurer of the E. H. Ferree Company, used the actual SSN of his secretary, Hilda Schrader Whitcher (pictured below). Even though the card was printed in red — the real cards are printed in blue — was half the size of a real card, and had “specimen” printed across the front, many people used Whitcher’s SSN — 078-05-1120 — as their own. Over time, the SSN has been claimed by a total of 40,000 people. The Social Security Administration even initiated an advertising campaign stating that it was illegal to use the number, but it was still found to be in use by 12 individuals as late as 1977. You would think that companies would have learned a lesson from this incident, but in 2016, Todd Davis, CEO of LifeLock — a cybersecurity company that offers identity theft protection services — used his own SSN in advertisements for his company, which allowed his identity to be stolen over a dozen times.
