Tag: Annualcreditreport.com

Child Identity Theft: Why you need to check your child’s credit report today

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Children are an attractive target for identity theft. Why?

Several reasons:

  1. Clean credit history
  2. Clean criminal history
  3. Clean employment history
  4. It may be many years before the theft is discovered

That last one can be especially damaging. If a child’s identity is stolen at age 10, it may be another eight years or more before he applies for a credit card, tries to open a checking account or attempts to obtain an auto loan. By then, his credit (or criminal/medical/employment) history can be incredibly difficult to repair, since the crime took place so long ago.

That’s why you’re going to check your kids’ credit reports today, isn’t it? Go to AnnualCreditReport.com like you would to get your own credit reports.

Basically, you’re making sure your child doesn’t have a credit report. If he or she does, you need to take a closer look.

There’s an article from the MSN Money site called “Stolen innocence: Child identity theft” that’s worth reading, despite its Lifetime movie-esque title. I’m not sure when the article was originally written (it refers to Hillary Clinton as “Former New York Sen[ator],” so I’m guess it’s not super-recent), but it’s mostly good information.

However, the article features a section in which some people are debating whether child identity theft is actually a significant problem, which strikes me as a little strange (especially considering the sources in question). Growing problem or not, isn’t it worth your while to at least check?

I mean, I don’t advocate living in fear on any level. But since you’re checking your own credit reports anyway (you are, aren’t you?), you might as well make sure your kids’ reports are clean while you’re at it.

Another article about getting your credit report

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There is an excellent blog site called Get Rich Slowly that I highly recommend. It doesn’t really cover fraud or identity theft—the focus is on personal finance. Getting out of debt, saving money, spending wisely; J.D. covers it all, and he speaks from experience (he went from a mountain of credit card to zero over the course of a few years).

However, since we’ve been on the topic of credit reports and credit repair this week, I thought I’d post a link to a GRS article from a couple months ago. The article is about Annualcreditreport.com versus the one with the silly commercials, and you can read it right here. He also links to an article from yet another site. There’s plenty to read!

Normally I like to create the content for this site, but that’s just because I like to write. When someone else has an article I think you should read, I have no problem linking to it. Definitely check out Get Rich Slowly. It’s good stuff.

Five Things About Credit Reports

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  1. By law, you are entitled to one free credit report per year from each of the three major credit reporting agencies, TransUnion, Experian and Equifax.
  2. There is only ONE place to safely obtain these credit reports: https://www.annualcreditreport.com/. Beware of websites with similar names, since these could be spoof sites created to steal personal information (which you are required to provide when you get your credit reports). Also, do not be taken in by cute commercials with catchy songs. You know the ones I’m talking about. That is a service (of debatable value) that costs around $80 per year and, from what I hear, is very difficult to cancel. They’ve gotten in some hot water regarding advertising practices, too.
  3. You can obtain your credit score when you get your reports, but you will have to pay for this information. The report is free, getting the score is not. For the purposes of checking for identity theft, fraud and errors, you do not need your score. Actually, you don’t really need it for much of anything, unless you’re the type who wants to brag about your credit score. People are not impressed by that, incidentally.
  4. All three of the major credit reporting agencies are required to share new information with each other within 24 hours, so your credit reports should all contain the same information. Use this to your advantage: stagger your reports so (for example) you’re getting TransUnion in January, Equifax in May, and Experian in September. It’s a great way to keep tabs, rather than getting all three in January then waiting 12 months to check your reports again.
  5. When you read your credit reports, you’re looking for accounts you did not open, errors regarding late payments, charge-offs or collections, and balances that are wildly different than what you think they should be (if it says you owe Discover $14,000 when you’ve never owed more than $27, for example). Basically, you’re checking to make sure all the information is accurate.

Credit reports are a vast, complex subject. I’ll talk more about them this week—this could turn into a series!