A crime wave is sweeping the country: ID thieves are preying on children. Many parents may be surprised to find that their child already has bad credit.
Ian Umscheid is only 7 years old and already has a lengthy and damaging credit report. Among the charges: $5,400 on a Bank of America credit card, $2,700 owed to Ally Financial Bank, and $4,500 to a California jewelry store.”At the time it happened, he would have been about 6,” said Ian’s father Simon Umscheid. “They indicated to me that there was about six or seven accounts open. In total about $15,000 in purchases.
“The problem began after the family’s health care provider lost a computer hard drive. A credit monitoring service caught the suspicious purchases, but not before someone had racked up thousands of dollars in charges.”He said that someone stole the computer and found my name on it, and they made like a card and did my name on it,” said Ian.
http://liarcatchers.com/identity_theft_investigation.html
The Federal Trade Commission says more than 19,000 children had their identities stolen last year. Children have become targets because they have no history of debt.Experts say the identity theft is typically discovered when a child turns 16 or 17 and begins applying for school or car loans.
There are steps parents can take to prevent their child from being a victim.Parents shouldn’t carry their child’s Social Security number around in their wallet unless they are going to need it for a specific purpose. Parents should also monitor their child’s activity online.But even when parents do everything right sometimes things are out of their control.
Ian’s father is a district attorney.”I have been a D.A. for 12 years,” said Umscheid. “I’m a prosecutor. Every day I deal with this issue at work every day. But now it hits home, so that does show that it can happen to anybody, and we’re extremely careful.”Tracking and catching identity thieves can be difficult, and the harm they cause can haunt a person for years. Equifax now offers a family plan to help parents keep tabs on their children’s credit files.
