It’s tempting to wish for a new SSN as a way to start fresh with your credit history, but the SSA will only issue a new SSN if: Sequential SSNs assigned to members of the same family are causing problems, more than one person is assigned or is using the same SSN, a victim of identity theft is facing issues using their original number, a person is experiencing harassment, abuse, or life-threatening danger, or someone has religious or cultural objections to numbers or digits in their original SSN.