Stealing Your Child’s Credit?
The crime began with a phone call: Jason’s ex-wife, dialing in to check on the couple’s 5-year-old son, who was home with his father when the phone rang. Oddly, the boy’s name flashed across the caller ID window, but Jason thought nothing of it.
Mistake.
Today, three years later, the Las Vegas father recognizes this call as his first taste of something truly dismal: His ex-wife, who had filed for bankruptcy, used their child’s name and social security number to buy a cell phone. Then she stopped paying the bill.
Jason found out when his son turned 6 and received a credit agency collection notice for $344.
As identity theft goes, the scam was particularly nefarious - abusing the name of your own child. Unfortunately, children are increasingly becoming victims of this kind of identity theft.
Nevada ranked second in the nation for identity theft from 2003 to 2005. Just 3 to 4 percent of people who reported the crime in the state were minors, according to the Federal Trade Commission. But for a combination of reasons, the actual number of child victims is likely to be much higher, said Linda Foley, founder of the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center.
Children are too young to discover the fraud themselves. Also, their parents can be reluctant to report a fraud within the family. Surveys conducted by the commission last year revealed that almost one-third of those identity theft victims who know the person responsible are swindled by a family member or relative.
Foley estimates that a quarter of calls made to her San Diego advocacy organization are related to child identity theft cases.
During an interview with the Sun, not halfway through hearing about Jason’s situation, Foley sighed and said, “Let me guess, the father found out when the kid’s name came up on the caller ID.”
She sees it all the time.
Jason spent months trying to clear the debt. The first collection notice was sold to a second collection company, who added another fee and was doubly determined to collect. With every notice, Jason made another round of calls, begging the creditors, the phone company, even the police, to sit down and square up the bad debt. They wouldn’t.
So finally Jason, who agreed to talk to the Sun only if his last name was not published, marched the boy to a cellular telephone store. He demanded that a manager call up the outstanding bill from a computer and read aloud the account information. The manager obliged, and Jason fumed.
“Well, that name, with that social security number,” Jason yelled, pointing, “is this 6-year-old kid right next to me.”
Source: Las Vegas Sun
Filed under: Security
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