Believe it or not, your child may have a ding on his credit report before he even learns to tie his shoes. That’s because, to identity thieves, he is just another target, no matter what his age. In fact, identity thieves sometimes prefer to steal personal information from those who are under 18 because it could be a period of several years before their crimes are found out.
They will be found out only when Junior goes to the bank at age 18 and tries to apply for a car loan or perhaps when he is applies for a student loan to continue his education. That’s when his loan will be denied due to the fact that he has bad credit, unbeknownst to him until that moment.
Now you may think that it would be difficult to steal the identity of a minor because he has no accounts or identification to speak of. However, the only thing that identity thieves really need is that golden key: a Social Security number. With this number, they can open bank and credit accounts and make large purchases, and your child will end up with the charge-offs and missed payments on his credit report.
Adam Levin, chairman and co-founder of Identity Theft 911 recently told the Dallas Morning News, “The conventional wisdom is that it’s about 500,000 people a year who are children who become victims of identity theft.†However, many do not know that they are victims yet, and that number, in actuality, could be substantially higher.
The identity protection company, Debix, confirmed this with their study that showed that one child in every classroom already has an unauthorized transaction on their credit report.
So what can you do to protect your children? First of all, be careful with their Social Security numbers. Don’t carry them around in your wallet or submit them online through unsecure websites (those that don’t have a lock icon to the right of the address bar and https in the address).
Another thing you can do is consider purchasing identity theft protection for your children. So far, there are only a few companies that offer this service. One of them is LifeLock. LifeLock offers protection for children with the purchase of any adult membership for only $25 a year or $22.50 with the discount on this site.
Essentially, LifeLock will make sure, through regular checks, that your child has no credit report on file. If a credit report is found with your child’s information before he has reached legal age – or opened a teen account that is cosigned by you – you will know that there is something fishy going on and can take further action before any serious damage is done.
Both Debix and TrustedID protect children from identity theft as well. At Debix the cost is $20 per year per child and they are the only company that does not require an adult sign up. A family plan is also available. TrustedID protects children as part of their family plan which costs $161.49 per year and covers all adults and children living at the same residence.
Everyone wants to make sure that his or her child has a good start in life. And that includes beginning their credit history with a clean report that is safe from fraud. It’s important to take precautions now instead of having to clean up a mess made by identity thieves, often many months or years after the fact.
Learn more about the protection that is available for your children and how you can get a discounted rate on this insurance from any of the identity theft protection services mentioned above.