Take These 3 Steps If Your Child's Identity Has Been Compromised

We have four (vivacious) daughters. If you were to combine the money in their piggy banks, it wouldn't get you to far. Yet, our girls are a prime target for identity thieves. One in 10 children has a Social Security number that is used by someone else before becoming an adult, according to a report by CyLab, a research center at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh. The report also revealed that the rate of identity theft among children was 51 times higher than that among adults in the study.

If you discover your child has a credit report with fraudulent information, take these steps:

Step. 1: Report it to your local law enforcement.

Step 2: Contact each credit reporting agency. You'll be asked to verify his or her status as a minor—with a birth certificate, for example—and instructed to send a letter asking it to remove every account and collection notice that is associated with the report.

Step 3: Place a 90-day fraud alert on your child's files and order a credit freeze to prevent any potential creditors from requesting your child’s report while the errors are being corrected.

If you have any questions, give holler at us!

DISCLAIMER: Jackson Lee | PA appreciates you visiting this website. Please remember that this information is based on general facts and might not apply to specific factual situations. Please do not consider this information to be specific legal advice. Always consult a lawyer to apply the law to your specific facts and state.