Identity Theft Victims Getting Younger...We Are All At Risk! Anyone can be the next victim of identity theft, but we usually expect that the victim would be an adult, not a child. However, the Federal Trade Commission has recently published a report revealing that over 400,000 children are becoming victims of identity theft each year. American teenagers 18 or younger have doubled the number of Identity theft victims in the past 3 years. American teenagers 18 or younger have doubled the number of Identity theft victims in the past 3 years, and more than 70,000 complaints were received last year. For impostors it is easy to steal the identity of their victims just by getting their Social Security number. An Identity Fraud Survey Report released in January 2006 by the Better Business Bureau revealed these findings: - The number of American adult victims of identity fraud decreased from 10.1 million in 2003 and 9.3 million in 2005 to 8.9 million in 2006.
- Total one-year fraud amount rose from $53.2 billion in 2003 and $54.4 billion in 2005 to $56.6 billion in 2006.
- With the mean fraud amount per fraud victim rising from $5,249 in 2003 and $5,885 in 2005 to $6,383 in 2006.
- The mean resolution time is at a high of 40 hours per victim in 2006 compared to 28 hours in 2005 and 33 hours in 2003.
While the number of adult victims is decreasing, children who generally have clean credit files are being stolen and because they are too young to care about their credit history, their identity may remain stolen for years without the parents or the victim being aware of this situation. Considering this fact, the number of young victims can dramatically increase, as they do not realize they have been victims of an impostor and do not file a complaint until they find it. However, most parents get Social Security numbers for their children, used for tax reporting purposes, and now is being used as identity thefts tools, as well. Children's identity is generally used for credit card fraud, phones and utility service, banking fraud and employment fraud. A young victim, whose identity has been stolen at age 12, usually does not discover it until age 18 when many teenagers try to apply for a job, finding that their Social Security number did not match up with the one in use. The Federal Trade Commission alerts parents to verify their children have not being victims of identity theft and guard all children's private information carefully. If an impostor has already stolen the identity of a child, parents must report it immediately to prevent future problems. Young victims will be required to provide student ID number, passport, driver's license, Social Security Administration documents and other information before they can take back their identity already damaged by the impostor. Because identity thieves want the children's information to get credit, they do not care about paying the bills, hitting the credit bureaus lowering the victim's credit score and damaging his/her credit history. In the long run, their activities have the companies calling the parents to collect debt that does not belong to their children. Identity theft situation is becomes even worse when the targeted victim is an infant. The FTC has received accounts from parents reporting victims as young as 11 months old, whose identities were stolen and used to make fraudulent purchases, ended up with the bills in their parents' hands, but considered illegal activities that are not noticeable for years, this fact is alarming. If you think you or your children have been a victim of identity theft, contact the Federal Trade Commission Hotline-1-877-IDTHEFT (438-4338) or visit this page for further information and file online the ID Theft Complaint form: www.ssa.gov/pubs/idtheft.htm Ask yourself: do you know what is in your trash? Useful External Resources: | 