Hey All,
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few years you should be well aware of the fact that identity theft is the fastest growing crime in North America.
There are some things that you might not know about it though. That includes:
1. Financial or Credit identity theft, the kind that credit alerts track, accounts for only 16% of all identity theft cases. That's because it is the easiest to track as it leaves a paper trail.
2. 60% of victims knew the person who perpetrated the crime.
Two cases include a woman who left her kids with her babysitter in the house. The babysitter, someone she thought she could trust, used checks from her check book and opened up her own account taking money from her. It took several years for this to be fixed, even after she thought she had fixed it.
The second case is where a woman in receiving a call from her ex husband noticed on the caller ID that it was her six year old son's name.
It is pretty disgusting that the people we should be able to trust implicitly are often the ones who stick a knife in our back.
The problem with children and identity theft is that it's often not until the child turns 18 and then wants to start a credit history that the theft isn't revealed.
By then it's too late. That impacts a child's ability to get a student loan an apartment and possibly a mortgage or any other types of credit.
To protect your child from identity theft here are some suggestions.
1. Notify the credit reporting agencies that there should not be any type of credit account - credit cards, loans, utilities, etc. - taken out in your child's name. It is illegal to extend credit to a minor and any reputable credit supplier will be more than happy to comply.
2. Lock any and all important documents regarding your child away in a safe at home or in a safe deposit box at a bank.
3. Absolutely refuse to give your child's SSN or anything else unless it's for applying for a passport, job, enrolling them in school or registering at a hospital, or getting a driver's license. Simply put it's really no ones business.
4. Make sure your children are aware of safe internet use. Make sure they know that sites like facebook are havens for criminals scanning these sites.
For more information on helping to protect yourself from identity theft click here.
