Children most typical sufferers of identity theft

Child identity theft is becoming all the rage. New research shows that identity thieves are focusing increasingly on children because parents do not pay attention and the theft can go undetected for years.

All about child identity theft

Thousands of children and their families are being victimized by identity theft and thousands more are at risk, according to a report by Carnegie Mellon University’s CyLab cybersecurity research center. The report examined the identity protection scans of 42,232 kids conducted in 2009-10 by the Debix AllClear ID Protection Network after parents were notified their children’s IDs may have been compromised. There were 4,311 children, a little over 10 percent, which had identity thieves steal Social Security numbers according to Debix AllClear ID data. Obviously there is problem when there is a 0.2 percent rate of United States adults that have their identity stolen which is 51 times lower than the child rate according to the Debix AllClear ID 663 attacks out of 347,362 adults. There was a five month old that had her identity stolen. There were 42 open accounts in Arizona that a 17 year old girl found out she had. In all of these charge cards, vehicle loans and ! mortgages, she owed $725,000 in debt. There were eight individuals that had her Social Security number. There was a mortgage foreclosure that a 14-year old boy had from 10 years earlier on his credit rating in Kentucky.

It is friendly fraud with kids

After child identity theft started in the early 1980s, it has come even farther. The Social Security Administration got orders from the Internal Revenue Service. It said that children should be given Social Security numbers to go with them. Most children become identity theft victims at the hands of parents, family members or close friends who have access to their Social Security numbers. According to Javelin Strategy and Research, “friendly fraud” made up 30 percent of child identity theft cases last year. Identity thieves are able to take out loans, create accounts and even get credit cards since age is not verified in credit checks. The Identity Theft Resource Center helped a young man trying to work on his credit. Evidently his father had, years ago, stolen his identity and damaged his credit beyond repair.

Figuring out child identity theft

According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, every child should be taught out identity theft. They ought to know sharing information on the Internet isn’t always safe. Make sure you have a secure place where you keep Social Security numbers, birth certificates and other personal information. You may have mail that came in a child’s name. This could possibly be a concern that credit was opened for the child. In case you are a parent, gets a-hold of the major credit agencies. Get a credit rating for the child. If no credit score exists, the child is likely in the clear. There needs to be a security alert filed with Equifax, TransUnion and Experian if there’s a credit score. File a police report using the credit reports as evidence. The fraudulent account listed in a police report will require credit states to take them off of the report. It will only take 30 days max to get this to occur.

Citations

Forbes

blogs.forbes.com/moneybuilder/2011/03/31/protecting-your-child-from-identity-theft/

Atlanta Journal Constitution

ajc.com/news/child-identity-theft-increases-572552.html

Wallet Pop

walletpop.com/2011/04/05/report-as-child-id-theft-grows-rapidly-consider-these-precauti/