Repair Your Credit Profile

Not even kids are safe from identity theft these days, experts say.

In fact, they might be the best targets because most won’t realize they were victims until years later when they apply for a credit card or try to get school loans or a driver’s license, according to research by the Identity Theft Resource Center, a California-based nonprofit organization that guides victims through credit repair.

Officials from Hurst, Bedford and Grapevine say that although they have had no reports of child identity theft, the crime is hard to identify.

“Most people don’t find out until collection starts calling,” Hurst police Sgt.

“For kids, there are no addresses and numbers for creditors to check out.”

There’s another reason child identity theft may not be reported very often: Most times, the crime happens close to home.

In about 65 percent of the cases, the thief is a parent, center founder Linda Foley said.

Parents often try to “justify it by saying, ‘I was just borrowing,’” said Foley, who has helped hundreds of children sort through a mountain of debt incurred by a parent.

“If they don’t pay their own debt, why in the world would they take care of their child’s?”

Financial identity theft: When the child’s Social Security number is used to establish new lines of credit.

Most applications do not require proof of identity, Foley said.

Criminal identity theft: When a person uses a child’s information to get a driver’s license.

This person may be an illegal immigrant who bought the information or a relative who has had a license suspended or revoked.

Identity cloning: When scam artists collect information about minors and sell it on the black market to illegal immigrants or people who are trying to avoid arrest.

Clones might also take advantage of the death of an infant or child by using old newspaper records or death certificates often found on the Internet.

Thieves can buy birth certificates of people who have died and use them for identity theft.

Foley said the worst case she has seen was when a woman stole the identities of all her children, her boyfriend’s children, her mother and her siblings so that she could shop.

Many children find out they are victims just as they enter adulthood.

Children under 18 cannot legally give their consent for credit cards, Foley said.

Because of the paperwork involved, credit is easier to repair when a child is under 18, Foley said.

Most times, victims enroll in a credit-freeze program that makes it difficult to get a credit card without extensive authorization and gives them the chance to pick up the pieces of their credit history, Foley said.

She also advocates that local police treat child identity theft as a criminal case, not a civil one, because most children won’t sue their own parents.

You’re never too young for identity theft (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

In about 65 percent of the cases of child identity theft, the thief is a parent who claims to be “just borrowing,” officials say.

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