CHILDREN: NEW TARGETS FOR IDENTITY THEFT
As children do not pay taxes, apply for loans, buy items over the Internet or have to pay off mortgages, their credit record is excellent. If you are a young boy or girl and you fear that perhaps your identity has been compromised
Children should not have any worries apart from attending school regularly,
doing their homework or helping their moms and dads at home. However, everything indicates that they should worry about identity theft and start learning all the pieces of advice available in order to keep themselves safe from this hideous crime. However puzzling it might be, children areidat identity thieves can use it to commit all kinds of crimes and felonies.
As children do not pay taxes, apply for loans, buy items over the Internet or have to pay off mortgages, their credit record is excellent. In fact, they do not have any credit report. And this is exactly why their Social Security Number, full name or birth date are so valuable for unscrupulous people: it will not be until the child grows up and he applies for a loan or try to use his or her Social Security Number for any utility bill that he will discover that somebody has robbed him of his identity.
Many a time, they are the the children’s parents who robbed them of their identity but in other occasions the parents sell or offer their son’s or daughter’s sensitive data to unscrupulous people so that they can use it in their own benefit. Thus, for instance, a fifteen-year-old boy can have 10 years of credit record, six-year-old girl may have a five year credit record including a loan for $125,000 and so on.
Criminal authorities and law enforcement officials agree on the fact that it is extremely difficult to detect this particular type of identity theft as the victims will not file a complaint or a report until many years later in the future, when their financial record might be too compromised and it can be really difficult and expensive to get their identity back. In addition, experts are worried about the emotional and psychological burden that these kids may suffer as they have been betrayed by the two people they should have more trust on: their mother and father.
If you are a young boy or girl and you fear that perhaps your identity has been compromised, you can ask any of the national credit report agencies to send you a credit report. If you do not receive any, then your personal, sensitive information is safe. If you receive a report then you can always ask them to place a fraud alert on your report.
