Should We Fear Child Identity Theft?
April 16, 2008
While everyone is worrying (rightly so) abot their identity being stolen, no one seems to be giving any thought to our youngsters identity yet its the childrens identity that the criminals are now going for. After all, who is going to know for the next 15 or so years?
There is a lot of talk about identity theft in the press today but few are covering the fastest rising demographic of identity theft victims which is our youngsters. Children are at particular danger from identity theft due to the fact that they get a valid social security number at birth and few families bother to monitor the childs credit reports since they assume there is nothing to monitor. Years later when the youngster reaches maturity and sets about to buy a car or get a charge card, the fraud is discovered and the application is rejected. What comes after this event is a dire and very often futile effort to clear the credit details so the young adult can get on with their life. Lets take a look at this phenomenon in more detail and review some simple steps you can and should take to protect your child from the serious risk of identity theft.
How Does Child Identity Theft Happen?
Every baby born in the United States is issued with a social security number, which the parent often has to obtain for health insurance and tax reasons. In the course of taking the child to the physician, registering for school, signing on for sports, and filing taxes, that childs social security number is available to be viewed and is spread out all over town. While the authorities are busy bringing in changes to protect adults from identity theft, a childs social security number is still the first form of identification at school and at medical offices. This makes every child a perfect target for identity theft.
Moreover, few parents even consider checking their childs credit report since the child is not using any form of credit until they are at least 18 years old. Even adults who acknowledge the importance of supervising their own credit history, and do so regularly, ignore the need to keep an eye on their children’s credit reports. In the meantime the government urges us to monitor our own credit without mentioning that we should do the same for our children. Most disturbingly is that the internet site set up to provide free credit reports don’t allow you to see your childrens records. You must send a letter through the mail in order to gain access to this info.
When Child Identity Theft Happens In Your Home
A recent Missouri child identity theft case that made the headlines highlghted the sad fact that often the villian is known to the family of the child and even on occasion, as in this case, be a member of the childs family.
Often of course the child will not know that they have been a victim of identity theft until many years later when they reach adult hood. This poses a few problems for the new adult in regards to clearing their credit history. Crooks who commit identity theft against children open new bank accounts and take out loans in the name of that child. Statistics show that it’s often much harder to clear up accounts that were opened new as compared to existing accounts with fraudulent charges made on them. Secondly, the accounts are often alot of years old and deep into collections by the time the person becomes well aware of the child identity theft. Even if the accounts are paid back after going to collections, the black mark persists from the original lender for several years.
Protect Your Child From Identity Theft
The best way to protect your child from identity theft is to habitually monitor their credit report yearly. It is also a good idea to avoid distributing your childs social security number unless absolutely essential. Only the IRS, and (only in some cases) your child’s doctor, have the right to demand your childs social security number. In addition you should never carry your child’s social security around with you. Memorize the number and leave the card locked in a safe place.
Better still, take out some protection cover with a company like Lifelock. $50 a year is a cheap price to pay for peace of mind.
Tags: identity theft, child identity theft
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