Child identity theft victims hurt most often by their family

sufferers of identity theft are increasingly those too young to realize it. New research shows that identity thieves are focusing increasingly on children because parents don’t pay attention and the theft can go undetected for years.

Why child identity theft takes place

There have been thousands already sufferers of identity theft while thousands more have the risk there nevertheless. A Carnegie Mellon University CyLab cybersecurity research center report explained this clearly. There were 42,232 children in the report looked at from the 2009-10 Debix AllClear ID Protection Network scan where parents were told about compromised child IDs. There were 4,311 kids, just a little over 10 percent, which had identity thieves steal Social Security numbers according to Debix AllClear ID data. Of 347,362 adults in the Debix AllClear ID data, there were 663 attacks. That is 51 times lower than the child rate at 0.2 percent for United States adults. The youngest it ever got was a five month old. The identity was stolen nevertheless. A 17-year old girl from Arizona found she was $725,000 in debt with 42 open accounts including mortgages, vehicle loans and charge cards. Her Social Security number was connected to eight suspects. A 14-year-old boy f! rom Kentucky had a credit rating going back 10 years listing a mortgage foreclosure.

Sufferers of friendly fraud

There has been lots of child identity theft. The early 1980s was when it began. 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. Parents, family members and family friends started to do identity theft with these Social Security numbers. Javelin Strategy and Research reported that there were several “friendly fraud” cases last year. That was 30 percent of identity theft cases. Because credit checks do not verify age, identity thieves can freely take out loans, get credit cards and create accounts. The non-profit Identity Theft Resource Center recently helped a young man from Florida who failed a background check to become a police offer because his estranged father had stolen his identity years earlier and destroyed his credit.

Child identity theft solutions

According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, every child should be taught out identity theft. They should know sharing information on the Internet isn’t always safe. All personal information, including Social Security numbers and birth certificates, should be kept in a secure place. Be worried about a child having had credit opened if mail comes in the child’s name. A credit score could possibly be taken for the child from all three credit bureaus. Sometimes there is no credit report. That is most likely good for child. For those who have a credit history for the child, file a security alert. Do this at TransUnion, Experian and Equifax. File a police report using the credit reports as evidence. The credit bureaus are required to remove the credit report issues within 30 days after a police report listing the fraudulent accounts.

Articles cited

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/