This story feels impossible, but it’s true. Oh, and if I missed with some of the names here, sorry, it’s hard to keep all the misspellings in the right place! — Dan

The Identity Theft That Went Backward

On October 31, 2019, the Los Angeles District Attorney charged Matthew Kierans with two counts of felony identity theft. Two months prior, Keirans, apparently homeless, walked into a bank branch in LA and asked them to close two accounts under the name of William Woods, who he claimed to be. When the bank checked the accounts, they found a good amount of money in them, which wasn’t consistent with the disheveled man before them. They asked him for identification and he handed his state-issued California ID and his Social Security card. The Social Security number matched but, as the Los Angeles Times reported, “because of the large amounts of money in the accounts, the bank employee asked Woods a series of security questions, which he was unable to answer correctly.” So the bank investigated further. They called the phone number associated with the accounts; that person correctly answered the security questions and told the bank that no one in California should have access to his accounts. The bank manager called the police, and ultimately, Kiernans was arrested.

This appeared to be an open-and-shut case of identity theft. The real William Woods faxed the LAPD a copy of his birth certificate, Social Security card, and other ID. Meanwhile, Matthew Kierans became progressively uncooperative, repeatedly saying that he wasn’t Matthew Kierans. He claimed that a private investigator that he had hired would clear this up, but that investigator had disappeared to Mexico and was not responding to his outreach. Kierans demanded to speak to the FBI. His public defender argued that Kierans lacked competency to stand trial, and in February 2020, the judge agreed. Kierans was sent to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation and treatment.

The treatment didn’t work — because Kierans wasn’t crazy. And he wasn’t Matthew Kierans. 

He was, in fact, the real William Woods.

The real Woods — we’ll call him “Woods” from now on because otherwise, this story is going to be super confusing! — took a job as a hot dog vendor in New Mexico in the 1980s. In 1988, his employer hired a man named Matthew Keirans (note the slightly different spelling), and the two rarely if ever interacted — until one day when Keirans apparently tried to steal Woods’ wallet. Woods confronted Keirans and Keirans returned the wallet, with everything still there. But the damage had been done. Woods had been carrying both his Social Security card and birth certificate in his wallet, and Keirans must have gleaned that information off those documents. From that point on, Matthew Keirans barely existed, if at all; he became William Woods. The Gazette (Iowa) shares some of the key moments -- and as you’ll see, the ID theft went deep:

Keirans had, effectively, become William Woods. And when Woods tried to become Kerians, Keirans somehow made Woods into Kierans. And the real Woods paid the price. As the Associated Press noted, “Woods spent 428 days in county jail and 147 days in the mental hospital before he was released after agreeing to a no-contest plea. He was ordered to pay $400 in fines and to stop using the name William Woods.” And he probably would have — and Keirans probably may have gotten away with it — except that Woods was due one more injustice. The state of California charged Woods various fees at his time in the psychiatric facility, and Woods didn’t have a way of paying due to a bad credit score associated with the Kierans identity. The only way for Woods to solve the problem, he figured, was to get his name back.

Woods tracked down Keirans and discovered he worked at the University of Iowa’s hospital system. Woods worked with a detective at the university who believed his story, and ultimately convinced authorities to run a DNA test, comparing Woods’ father’s DNA to his. That test confirmed that Woods was Woods and Keirans was not.

The FBI, at that point, finally got involved. In April 2023, Keirans pled guilty to identify theft and Woods’ conviction for the reverse in California was vacated.

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More About Social Security Numbers

Today’s Bonus fact: As Woods’ story demonstrates, it’s not a great idea to carry around your Social Security card — even though we give the number out to employers and others to verify our identities, in the wrong hands, your Social Security number can be misused by someone claiming to be you. It’s a really bad system — and for a long time, it was even worse. How so? Because until the 1970s, banks would often print your SSNs on your checks. The reason was to make it easier for banks to track you down in case you passed a bad check, but the downside was extreme — each check had your SSN, your home address, and your bank account number, which combined, could be used by virtually anyone to make a colorable claim on your money.

From the Archives: Repetitive Numbers: Why 078-05-1120 probably isn’t your Social Security number, but maybe you (or your parents or grandparents) once thought it was.

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And thanks! — Dan