Whom you call depends on where you live and the agencies available to service you. If you live within city or town jurisdictions, you will most likely want to contact your local city or town police department. If you reside outside city or town limits, your options will be the state police or your local county or parish sheriff’s office. If you are unsure of whom to call, contact your state police, state patrol, or state bureau of criminal investigation department and ask them to whom the crime should be reported.
Question #46: How and when should I report child identity theft to the police?
Child identity theft is like a cancer. If you do not put an end to child identity theft, it will grow to a point that will overwhelm you and your family, so let’s get started. Businesses or legal entities, such as a court, will not believe you have really been victimized if you have not contacted the police. Also, some banks, creditors, credit agencies, insurance companies, loan institutions, and business organizations have policies that preclude working with you unless you have a police report.
A big problem law enforcement agencies across the nation are experiencing is a lack of reporting by child identity theft victims. This fact is exposed in great detail in the Federal Trade Commission’s Identity Theft Survey Report.1 This report states that 74 percent of all identity theft victims, regardless of age, do not contact the police. Unreported child identity theft makes it impossible to accurately quantify the number of actual victims.
Once you make the decision to call the police and have prepared the items you need, call them. Options will be available for reporting your crime. You can call and request to have a law enforcement officer meet you, or you can go to the police station or sheriff’s office and have an officer take a report. While either is acceptable, you have taken the first and most important step in starting the process, which is to report child identity theft.
If a patrol officer, deputy, or trooper takes your initial report, ask if he or she intends to work the case personally, or if your case will be reassigned to a detective, investigator, or special agent. You are probably asking yourself now why this information matters. Well, it does. Any of the officers within the respective agency could work the crime, and most would do a good job given the factors I am about to discuss. Your goal, however, should be to ensure a law enforcement official with experience and knowledge of child identity theft, with time to work your case, is assigned to you. It does not matter what department they work for, or whether they are dressed in uniform or dress clothes, what matters is that the officer assigned to your case has the knowledge and availability to focus on your child and his or her stolen identity.
Your priority between the two should be knowledge of the crime. If the officer has not been trained on the aspects and intricacies of child identity theft, and the laws of identity theft, then he or she may have the available time to work on the case, but there may be a lot of wasted time due to lack of knowledge. Availability of the officer is the other issue, and this is dictated by work caseload. If you are assigned an investigator, detective, or special agent who is overworked with a high caseload, then your case will probably sit with limited attention. You do not want this either. Be proactive and ask questions of the law enforcement officer taking the initial report with the goal of getting your child’s case into the hands of the most knowledgeable and available investigator.
Be prepared for the possibility that the person taking the initial report may not be the one assigned to investigate your case. This is normal and the accepted procedure in many law enforcement agencies across the country. If the law enforcement officer you speak with initially tells you that the report will be forwarded to a detective bureau, investigations section, or bureau of criminal investigation, ask he or she when you can expect to receive a phone call. Also ask the officer for a name and contact phone number of the appropriate person in case you do not receive the phone call in a reasonable period of time.
You may not be able to obtain a copy of the initial police report for a few days after reporting the crime, so ask the officer you speak with in the initial conversation for a case number. In most cases, the officer can contact their dispatch area to have a case number assigned before the initial meeting concludes. Ask the officer when you can expect to receive a hard copy police report, the procedure for obtaining one, and if there are any costs associated with getting a copy of the report. When you finish meeting with the law enforcement officer, regardless of the location, double-check your paperwork to ensure you still have all of your original documents.
Now that you have filed a report with law enforcement, it would be a good time to sit down and check items off your list that you should have accomplished at this point:
Obtained a credit report
Requested a Social Security benefits and earnings statement
Created a journal
Contacted a credit reporting agency requesting a ninety-day fraud alert
Purchased an accordion-type file storage folder for letters and documents
Highlighted all documents for points of contact, amounts owed, and any court dates
Saved copies of any suspicious mail or e-mails
Question #47: What should I know about working with the police on a child identity theft case?
The best advice I can give you in reference to dealing with the police is to try not to be “annoying” but BE PERSISTENT in all phases of your police investigation. Few police agencies have an identity theft unit, and even fewer totally understand the crime of child identity theft and the wide range of methods used. They know this type of crime involves fraud, but may steer away from it if at all possible due to a lack of specialized personnel, lack of manpower, and most importantly, solvability reasons.
The same applies to police officers. Most police officers view child identity theft as a new crime buzzword that they somewhat understand but for which they have little or no training to investigate. If law enforcement does not understand child identity theft, they will be hesitant to fully investigate the case. Whether meeting with the initial law enforcement officer, or any individual subsequently assigned to your case, make sure to ask if he or she will be the investigating officer, and if they have received training on investigating child identity theft.
Fortunately for most police officers, the majority of child identity theft crimes have hard facts that can be traced, thoroughly investigated, and solved. An international criminal certainly could steal your child’s identity through the use of computer phishing, text, spam e-mails, spoofing, or phone conversations, but it is equally to more likely that it will happen from within the United States.
While most child identity theft is more likely to happen in the United States, a significant amount of fraud is committed against adults and businesses from outside the United States. Most of these cases are Nigerian scams. Nigerian scams come in many different varieties, but the basic premise is that they are able to con you out of money with a scheme they make you believe is true. An example of this is an unknown individual calls or e-mails you to notify you that he or she is contacting you on behalf of a friend or family member who is in distress. The caller or individual who sent the e-mail insists that money is needed immediately via wire transfer to remedy the situation. Under no circumstances should you ever wire funds, or release personal information, to an unknown source. Other Nigerian scams include mail fraud investment schemes and lottery-winning scams. Nigeria is just one of the foreign countries from which theft scams are on the rise, though it is not the only one. I mention this because credit card companies get burned so often, they have developed policies to forgive debts, both national and international, incurred by cardholders as the result of fraud. Credit card companies forgive fraud debt so frequently that police officers are not energized to investigate what credit card companies are not willing to prosecute.
The last issue you face is jurisdictional challenges and the ability to investigate. Local police officers are challenged when it comes to
investigating crimes committed by thieves outside of their jurisdiction. Law enforcement officials may gather facts and evidence from the victim, obtain a subpoena for online provider information, and interview local suspects, but jurisdictional limitations are a consideration of how your case will be assigned and investigated. Lack of proper budgeting and funding may hamper their efforts to travel great distances to investigate details of your case.
Officers with state authority can travel across the state, but face similar challenges when investigating details in other states. Federal authorities have jurisdiction across the United States, to include local law enforcement agencies. When the crime is international, there is little chance anything can be done. Federal authorities can work with Interpol on large issues, but it is doubtful that individual crimes will be investigated.
Remember when speaking with a law enforcement officer that quite often child identity theft is committed by criminals who have had physical contact with your child. This contact may have been at a business, school, or location that your child frequents, or more concerning, to your home. These factors make child identity theft solvable. Use this to your advantage when speaking with the officer. Credit card companies electing not to prosecute criminals will neither undo the harm caused to your child nor prevent it from happening to another child. You must be persistent.
Organizing your facts and documents will impress the investigating officer. Organization sets a positive tone for making the officer believe you can help them solve the case because you are detailed in your record keeping. Law enforcement always prefers a solved case versus an unsolved, open matter related to a child; the assigned officer is also allowed personal satisfaction in a closed case. Help them understand that your case can be brought to a logical conclusion with a conviction with your cooperation.
Question #48: When should I contact the postal service inspector regarding a stolen identity?
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is the law enforcement branch of the federal government that deals with U.S. mail. They are charged with investigating any crime that involves our mail. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is one of the best advocates you can find when your crime involves child identity theft, or identity theft.
Postal inspectors can assist you, for example, if a criminal steals your child’s identity and subsequently submits a change of address, allowing newly obtained credit cards to go to the criminal’s address of choice and not yours. They can investigate suspicious mail your child is receiving. They can investigate any case where your residential mail is stolen. Postal inspectors have jurisdiction across the United States and generally do a thorough job of following through with investigations.
In addition to investigating identity theft connected to the mail, postal inspectors should be credited with the best proactive fraud services available among the federal agencies. The U.S. postal service inspectors have produced several identity theft videos, such as:2
Identity Crisis—the story of identity theft
Truth or Consequences—check scams
All the King’s Men—recovering from financial crime
Web of Deceit—the prevention of Internet fraud
Long Shot—foreign lottery scams
Dialing for Dollars—telemarketing investment fraud
Nowhere to Run—international efforts to stop fraud
Work-at-Home Scams: They Just Don’t Pay—scams involving work-at-home offers
To view these videos, visit the U.S. Postal Inspection Service website at www.postalinspectors.uspis.gov.
I also encourage you to view the Consumer Awareness section on the same website.3 This section maintains great public information on the following topics:
ID theft
Reshipping scams
Money order scams
Internet scams
Work-at-home scams
Dialing for dollars
Sweepstakes
Victim rights
Visit the U.S. Postal Inspection Service website mentioned above. If you require any service outlined, their website is user friendly: victims can fill out online forms and submit them directly from the website. The following crimes are reportable on the website: mail theft, mailbox vandalism, identity theft, mail fraud, and false change of address. The website also offers victim assistance information.
You may also view the U.S. Postal Inspection site to educate yourself on the latest scams that involve the mail, or to look at the latest wanted posters. You can check out press releases on crimes solved. Use this site to obtain a complaint form if you are the victim of a mail-related crime. Lastly, check out the same Internet site to find your nearest U.S. postal inspector, or visit your local post office for help.
Question #49: What information do I need to provide as evidence of identity theft?
Most jurisdictions have an advocate within the prosecutor’s office called a victim witness coordinator, or victim assistant, waiting to help a victim with their identity theft crime. You may feel that you are on your own when it comes to gathering information and documentation and proving your case, but you are not. You need to reach out for help. Whether you choose to contact someone for help or not, let’s discuss what you will need to succeed in proving your case.
The first question I would pose is, how did you first find out about the crime? Was it a piece of mail that raised your suspicion? Was it a bill collector that called you? Did you get a U.S. Social Security Administration benefits statement with erroneous information on it? Was it information from your insurance carrier on a medical procedure your child did not have?
Proving child identity theft means building your case through documentation that something criminal occurred. Start with the documents you have, such as your child’s birth certificate. Second, locate a recent photo of your child, so you can show the picture along with your supporting documentation, as you try to convince accusing people, companies, and agencies that your child is not the person out there applying for credit. Third, have your child present when you speak with the police, if appropriate. This may seem like a frightening consideration, but it is an important step in building your case.
If anyone can act as your advocate to advise creditors that your child is in fact not the person the creditor believes he or she is, it will be the police officer investigating the case.
I previously mentioned the need to purchase an accordion-type folder. Organize this folder into sections for the following: bills received, letters written, credit agency reports and correspondence, police report copies, court documents, and attorney correspondence. Include a section for your child’s personal information, such as the birth certificate and photo. Find a system that you are comfortable with, such as using a yellow sticky note to designate your original document, so you never give it away. These suggestions may sound logical, but the process may become overwhelming if you do not keep very good records in an organized manner.
Investigators want to know why it is you think your child has become a child identity theft victim. Why did someone steal your child’s name, date of birth, or Social Security information? If your discovery began with a letter from the Internal Revenue Service, this is what you want to show the officer. The same applies to a court notice. Help the officer by showing them your journal of creditors, businesses, or organizations you have called, written to, or visited in your attempt to clear up the fraudulent activity against your child.
If you speak with a business, ask the associates or employees what the person who bought their product(s) looked like. Make sure to write down their description and provide that information to the investigator. Make sure to ask what time of day the purchase occurred, as well as all serial numbers of the items purchased, if applicable, in case the police are able to obtain a search warrant at a later date. Try to get copies of bills of sale from any business, as well as copies of any documentation the fraudster signed. Last, if the store where items were bought had video surveillance, ask the manager to preserve it
for the police, and then immediately advise the investigator assigned to your case.
What have been covered thus far are thefts of a smaller scale. Imagine uncovering information that reveals your child’s name has been used to purchase an expensive investment, such as a vehicle or home. If this is the case, you will want to visit the bank, lender, or auto dealer and ask them for copies of any documents related to the purchase. Prepare yourself mentally; they will probably not want to provide the documents to you. What is important to note here is that the company from whom you are requesting the documents believes that the criminal is in fact the “real” individual with your child’s name. Their resistance to release documentation is acceptable, as the company may be worried about being sued by either you or the person to whom they sold the item.
Convey to agencies or companies you are approaching that you are trying to clear up a case of child identity theft and that you are a parent. Do the same with anyone not willing to give you documentation. If an agency or company is not willing to comply with your request for documentation, provide this information to the police. Law enforcement can obtain a subpoena for the information, and force the business or organization to comply. If this does not work, you can hire a private attorney and ask him or her to petition the court for the documents. This part of the process may be very emotional and frustrating. Do not allow the situation to escalate by demanding documentation in such a way that you become part of the problem, and not the solution. Reach out for legal or law enforcement help to assist you with this process.
Question #50: As a parent, if I am a victim of identity theft, does it raise the chances that my child might be, as well?
Most adults experiencing an identity theft crisis never think to check their children’s credit file for abuse. The majority of victims never even check their spouse’s file. Identity theft is personal, emotional, and devastating and quite frequently causes a “tunnel vision”–type effect. Stealing one’s name, birth date, or Social Security number violates the victim, causing trauma that creates insecurity and confusion.
Child Identity Theft Page 12