The local news did a piece last night about identity theft with children's social security numbers. They suggested that parents go to the three credit agencies and check their children's credit. They said if something is found, the sooner it is flagged the better the chance the child's future credit can be saved. There is supposed to be a special form to fill out on these sites for a child.
I plan on doing this later today.....just wondering if anyone else has done it. Or will do it?
You know what? I never got to it last week. It's so easy to forget. Will put it on my "sticky notes" on my computer.
Isnt' it so sad when it's the family members who do this!?!? My husband's mom actually did this using my husband's number. When we went to buy a house she still had 3 lines of credit in his name! She had to pay off 2 of them and then prove she was paying off the 3rd by producing canceled checks. Grrrr. At least she was paying on them. He did have excellent credit at age 21! I've actually thought about having my girls open cc's when they are late teens WITH THEIR PERMISSION to help them build credit and teach them about it long before they are poor college students with no idea of how it works (that's what I did and it bit me in the butt).
Yes, when we signed up for Lifelock, they offered to monitor the child's credit for a very low fee. No issues on anyone.
I have checked my oldest kids' credit once when they were younger. There is an issue with their bio-mom and we feared that she might try to use their credit.
I haven't checked in years. Maybe I should do that too.
I saw a piece on this a few years ago. The majority of the issues (at that time) were PARENTS who used their child's social - horrible.
At that time, I considered a credit check for my boys, but it slipped my mind. . . now it has slipped right back in! Thanks for the reminder.
As an FYI my husband and his brother BOTH had someone using their social as a "working" social - not for credit, but so they could "legally" work in this country - since he was a child. We found it when we went to purchase a home about 12 years ago. He had to call the SS office and have them investigate, but we have flagged his number ever since!
We always check our son's as often as we check our own.
Our son had a teacher in preschool who had a grown daughter.
The teacher told us about how her daughters SS# had been stolen when she was a child and they had no idea about it until the girl was going to college and applying for her first credit card and they discovered her number had been used to wrack up roughly 10 years of debt.
It was a nightmare for them to get through and it took years to get it straightened out.
I have a friend I grew up with (just turned 50) and she just announced a total legal name change because her identity had been stolen.
Identity theft is really a very big problem.
I have checked my credit but it never occured to me to check my kids, I will do it now! You can check any SSN for free 3 times a year through annualcreditreport.com without entering a credit card. It won't give you your credit score but you can double check your credit history and make sure everything is accurate.
I thought about doing this when a family friend tried to get me to tell her my daughter's social security number. I think I'll do it today. Thanks for the reminder!
J.:
My kids have accounts with Navy Federal Credit Union. It's a service that is offered. We get quarterly reports and an e-mail should any activity take place.
Yes, we have a credit-monitoring program through Citi, and when we got our son's SSN, we added him to it. Basically, they notify us if there is any activity on it.
No, but it does scare the hell out of me, b/c my newborn son's ss card was 'lost' in the mail for almost 6 months before he was reissued a new card, and they wouldn't give us a new number. I need to go and check his credit now.
I have in the past but should keep up with it. I have unscupulous inlaws so I wouldn't put anything past them.
