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Children and Identity theft, Protect Your Family
By karen | October 28, 2008
When it comes to identity theft, a child is never too young to be protected.
A new child identity theft study, conducted by Javelin research and sponsored by Debix, analyzed cases of child identity theft and the effect it is having on children.
Report findings indicate a child’s social security number and identity is possibly more vulnerable and valuable than an adult’s. Why? Because children have social security numbers they are not using and parents are not monitoring, but they are valid and usable to a thief.
And today, one child in every classroom is already a victim of identity theft - which is going to rise.
Several recent child identity theft cases were especially serious. For example one child had seven identities listed under their social security number, with several thousand dollars in medical bills, apartment rentals, and credit accounts in collections. While a 14- year-old from Kentucky had a mortgage of over $600,000 which was foreclosed this past August.
And it seems a social security number can also be compromised before a child is born and the number assigned. In one instance, a credit file history began three years prior to a girl from Iowa being born, resulting in $325,000 of debt.
The impact identity theft will have on these children can be extreme, affecting their ability to qualify for college loans, employment, car loans, credit cards, and mobile phones among other things.
Topics: blog home, karen lodrick's blog |
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October 28th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
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