Child Identity Theft

Child identity theft is more common than you may think and with this white collar crime hitting minors more than ever we should protect our children’s identity at all costs.  Although your child may not have a credit card or an established credit his or her identity is at stake when reckless care is taken to protect and prevent fraud.  Protect your kids’ identity the same way you would protect yours.  Don’t skimp around and tell yourself things like: “little Jimmy and Mary are too small, what do they need id theft protection from?”  That is plain dumb and ignorant.  Yes, that is harsh but if you read on you will understand.

One thing you have to visualize is the feeling of cleaner and better credit.  If you have ever had that feeling you know that you have opportunities unlike many Americans.  The opportunities are:

• higher credit limits
• higher spending power
• lower interest rates
• and even 0% financing.

You are the lucky one who can have a lower mortgage and car payment and although you may not like the credit reporting system you rest easy at night with that peace of mind.  Why shouldn’t your kids be given the same chance when they are adults?

Child identity theft is rampant and a torrent of new child id theft cases piles up daily.  Most of the children whose identity is stolen don’t know it until little Jimmy gets a phone call from a cell phone company asking for a payment of a hefty bill. Or maybe, little Mary will greet a sheriff deputy asking for her to show up to a legal hearing after a thief swindles several business for thousands of dollars using Mary’s name.  You, as the parent can stop child identity theft by learning more about it and teaching your kids the value of a clean credit.  It is not too early to start teaching your children about practical financial basics, and that includes knowing that this thing called credit will follow them for the rest of their lives.

But what if you find yourself trying to prevent child identity theft, but it still happens? What went wrong?

You may wonder and wonder, pull your hair out, and file millions of police reports, however, the answer may be right under your nose.  In my experience, most of the child identity theft is attributed to family members, close and close enough, who have horrible credit ratings or they don’t have the necessary financial backing to finance their expenses or investments.  Yes, your own family may perceive this white collar crime as innocent, often getting into an addictive state of spending on little Jimmy’s and Mary’s identities.

There is no set formula for catching your family members trying to steal your or your kids’ identity.  Even though it may be someone right under your nose, you will not smell this crime on them unless you check your kids credit report to verify your suspicions or plainly your curiosity.  If your kids are under the age of 18 they should have a spotless credit record and by that I mean totally blank.

Some kids may have the following entry on their credit record and still be under eighteen: the ever present credit card entry, specifically listed as authorized users.  Some parents allow their children to have their own credit cards with their own name that is to help the young lads and gals to establish credit record.  If you see anything else, it is either your kid trying to take out a student loan to buy a laptop or an identity thief who may wreck your child’s financial future.

You are confusing me…

Yes I may have done that, but the other culprit is self orchestrated identity theft.  A kid stealing his own identity to finance, well… whatever.  Education is key in having your kids understand the value of sound financial decisions, and although I repeat that, you know something is wrong when your underage teen has a better car than you, a lavish home theater system in his room, and a fleet of Armani suits in his closet.  The self identity theft is really not theft, but it is what many of Americans do, buy on credit using credit grantors who think that little Jimmy and Mary made $250,000 baby sitting.  The system is not great and manipulation of credit applications by the applicants is immense.  It is no wonder that many credit reports yield a tremendous difference between factual information and the one in the credit file.

To sum up, teach your children about the risks of identity theft.  The prevention tips on this blog should help you understand that the age doesn’t matter when it comes to having pristine credit.  Child identity theft or not, It isn’t too early, nor too late, to start monitoring your and your children’s credit file for derogatory information.