Fort Wayne CPA

Criminals look for individuals who have good credit scores and clean records because it is much easier to get approved for credit cards and loans. In a recent study, Carnegie Mellon CyLab* found that your children are 50 times more likely to be a victim of identity theft than you are. In their study, 10% of the children in the report had someone else using their social security number compared to 0.2% of adults. That is just something that most parents do not think about. Parents are busy with doctor visits, planning birthday parties, and saving for college educations. Identify theft is the last thing on a parent's mind, but if you step back and think about facts, it really makes sense. Children have clean credit reports so it will easy to be approved for a credit card. Secondly, it is very unlikely that a parent will monitor a child's credit report. If a child's identity is stolen, parents will find out years after the fact. If you do not protect your child's identity now, then it is likely they will be in need of credit repair in the future.

Here are 5 Tips to offer protection to your child's identity:

1) Watch for mail on your child's name - We get junk mail in our mailboxes every day. Be alert as you sort through your mail. If you spot any pre-approval credit card provides to your child's title it should raise a red flag. Credit card gives are a sign that your child may have a credit file open. If you begin to get telephone calls from collection businesses asking for your child, then it may be additional red flag indicating conceivable identification theft.

2) Protect your child's private data - Keep sensitive data equivalent to your child's social security number and date of birth in a locked safe. You never know who will probably be over at your home and you don't need sensitive information out in the open. Another method to offer protection to private information is to put a password in your smart phone, which will have all of the personal information for the whole family. If it falls within the improper hands, you want to have a password to give protection to that information. Make your password unique and avoid selecting your pet's name or your mother's maiden name.

3) Don't publish your child's personal information - Don't post your email address, mother's maiden name, pet's name or child's birthday on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. When you post information on social networking sites, you should consider it public and remember that the whole world can see it. Always think twice before you post anything on the web.

4) Be aware of phishing scams targeting your child - Phishing is the term when a con artist attempts to collect personal information from you by pretending to be a company with "lost data." Never give out your child's social security number over the phone or over the Internet. To confirm whether or not the call is legitimate, hang up and call the regular customer service line to confirm.

5) Educate your child - As you would educate your child to be careful around strangers, you need to educate them to protect their identity. Teach them to never share personal information such as their social security number, date of birth, or home address to anyone and to never enter personal information on the Internet. The probability of criminals stealing your child's identity will drop significantly if you do your part to protect it.