Are Children at Risk for Identity Theft?
It may hard to accept, but children and teenagers are just as much at risk for identity theft as everyone else. Why use a child’s identity? For criminals, stealing a child’s identity has some major advantages, mostly that the victim will probably be completely unaware of it for a long time. Many young people don’t realize they’ve been victimized by identity theft until they apply for cell phone service or a student loan. They get declined and view their credit report to find out why, only to see that someone has been using their identity for years. Criminals can open up several credit cards at once and have all of the mail regarding them redirected – this way they can spend thousands of dollars without anyone realizing there is a problem for years. What’s worse is child identity theft is a growing trend, the Federal Trade Commission reported that at least 5% of identity theft victims were under the age of 18 in 2005, a number that is sure to be on the rise.
Parents Can be the Criminals
Sadly, a great number of child identity thefts are actually committed by the parents of the children. A typical situation is the parent get’s him or her self into some debt trouble and ends up ruining their credit. The parents take the easy way out and start using their child’s name for further credit or loans. It may work for a while, but eventually that path to debt spirals out of control as well and the children are left as the victims.
What Can I do to Protect My Children?
Thankfully, you can protect your child from identity theft. First, you should be very careful about giving out any of your child’s personal information. It’s also important to talk to your children about keeping their information safe, especially online where many child identity thefts occur. You may be tempted to request your child’s credit report to make sure they have not already become victim to identity theft; however, you should refrain unless you have strong reason to believe identity theft has already occurred. Wait till your child is at least 17 to request a credit report, doing so before signals to credit bureaus that they are an adult and already have a credit history. If you want to provide them the absolute best protection, enroll your children in an identity theft protection program. There are programs designed specifically for people under 18 that you can take advantage of.
