Are you a parent who worries about protecting the identity of their child(ren)? It would be nice to think that all parents would, however, that is not the case. In the case of thousands of children, identity theft is a little too “close to home.”

A sad story indeed, but all too true, is one of a mother in Dallas, Texas who used the identity of her daughter in order to get credit. By the time her daughter, Shiloh, had reached 4th grade, this mother had opened 17 credit cards, accumulated thousands of dollars in credit card debt and received a $42,000 loan. Shiloh had been in debt since she was 5 years old and her mother, Cindy, “… did it because I had to, as a means of necessity. I feel bad I did it, and I shouldn’t have done it. At the time, I didn’t really think it was wrong in the sense I was hurting my child.”

It has been estimated in the past three years, that half a million children have had their identity stolen and used to get credit. We can only imagine how those numbers have grown.

Here are some tips taken from MSNBC.com in regard to protecting your child(ren) from identity theft:

— Limit access to your child’s Social Security number by not providing it on sports team sign-ups and other non-essential forms
— Shred all papers that contain account or Social Security numbers
— Do not carry your child’s Social Security card or number in your wallet
— College students should ask their school not to use their SSN as their college ID number
— Social Security numbers should never be given out over the phone or on the Internet.
— Observe the mail. If bills, statements or credit card offers begin arriving in your child’s name, call the credit reporting bureaus to check on his or her credit record. There should be none.

You can also look into identity theft protection services for children. Lifelock does offer protection for adults and children. Use code Defense to sign up for services today for the entire family.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Articles Concerning Identity Theft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.