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Q. But my child hasn't even established a credit history yet, how can their credit be good?
A. That's why it's so valuable, it has no bad history. There are no late payments reported, no bankruptcies, nothing to trigger a loan officer from thinking twice that this would be a good credit risk and offer the identity thief a line of credit.
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Q. How does that directly affect me?
A. If your child isn't protected from identity theft, they are the " weakest link " in your family. Just because you may be protected against identity theft doesn't mean you won't have to spend time cleaning up your child's credit history from identity theft. If you had your identity stolen, and your credit damaged, you could be spending hundreds of dollars, even thousands on legal fees attempting to clear it up. It takes an average of 171 hours to clean up false charges, much of that is during working hours, meaning you're going to lose time away from work. You're going to be spending as much time cleaning up the damage whither it was your credit or your child's. This is how it directly affects you.
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Q. How can identity theft damage someone's credit, such as my credit score?
A. An Identity thief will use information they have stolen, such as a social security number, to obtain credit. Once this credit line is opened, they will push it to the limit quickly, and never care about repaying anything. This balance now goes unpaid, month after month, being reported to the credit bureaus as late and never being paid on. This will be extremely difficult to clear up, because you have to now prove it wasn't you spending the money, and you may spend years and hundreds of dollars on legal fees just to get back to a clean credit history. You will get calls eventually from the lender, persistent calls, letters, threats of lawsuits, and the identity thief is long gone, leaving you to clean up the disaster.
If your credit history is damaged due to identity theft, you will find it extremely difficult to get a loan for even a car, school loan, new credit card... Your credit score is more valuable than you think. There were efforts to link a credit history and credit score, to obtaining a job, obtaining insurance. but these were blocked for now, but there is nothing to prevent those who started it from trying to make it law once again.
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Q. What is the single best way to protect my family against identity theft?
A. There are many steps you can take to prevent it from starting, and we will cover those within this document, but the single best way is to have a professional service who knows about this business to help you. The professional service must be one that works toward PREVENTING identity theft, not just a reporting service.
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Q. I've had mail stolen, and lost my wallet in the past, and who knows how much information I've entered over the Internet, how much am I at risk from identity theft?
A. You may have seen Lifelock's commercials with the truck driving around town with Lifelock's owner's social security number in BIG LETTERS, this is probably the biggest risk anyone could take. Your information may be already out there in thieves hands, ready to use. Some thieves steal so much that they can't use it all immediately, but hold on to them until the current identity they've stolen become too risky to use, and they switch over to the next stolen identity. It's important that you keep your social security number from being stolen, and even more important that you're protected from it being wrongfully used. Just like the big truck with the social security number written on it, as long as it can't be used by identity thieves, you're protected.
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Q. How can I discover if my identity has been stolen?
A. Just like the big truck driving around with the social security number on it, and many thieves may have written it down to attempt to use it, but if they don't attempt to use it for credit purposes, it may never be discovered that it was stolen. If your identity has been stolen, but never used, you're as safe as if it had never been stolen. You may only discover it was stolen if an attempt is made to use it fraudulently. You should also get a copy of your credit history at least annually, if not more often. Review it closely to see if there is anything listed that you don't know about. That is being proactive and not waiting for last minute surprises.
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