At this step you should have walked away and try another SSA office. The employees there are dumb. I'm 99% sure all the data was there, just this particular person had a bad day. My story - went to one office, they told me the same as to you: "Cannot see or check anything, file application to issue SSN, wait 2 weeks". I tried to go to another clerk in the same office, but he was sitting too close to the first one, so she noticed and screamed at me. Then I walked away, drove 15 minutes to another office and there was super friendly person who has checked in a few places in their system and in 5 minutes just wrote me my SSN on the sheet of paper. Received the physical mail a few days later btw, just needed to get the number itself. You can say something like "Need to start a job earlier" or so.
While there might be indeed the chance the data from DS260 wasn't sent/propagated, I see it as *very* unlikely event. So worth trying at least few different clerks and offices before you file an application.
At this step you should have walked away and try another SSA office. The employees there are dumb. I'm 99% sure all the data was there, just this particular person had a bad day. My story - went to one office, they told me the same as to you: "Cannot see or check anything, file application to issue SSN, wait 2 weeks". I tried to go to another clerk in the same office, but he was sitting too close to the first one, so she noticed and screamed at me. Then I walked away, drove 15 minutes to another office and there was super friendly person who has checked in a few places in their system and in 5 minutes just wrote me my SSN on the sheet of paper. Received the physical mail a few days later btw, just needed to get the number itself. You can say something like "Need to start a job earlier" or so. While there might be indeed the chance the data from DS260 wasn't sent/propagated, I see it as *very* unlikely event. So worth trying at least few different clerks and offices before you file an application.