Child Identity Theft
Page 14
The discovery of victimization is the most critical factor in child identity theft. The attraction of child identity theft versus identity theft of adults is in the amount of time you have to use the identity before the victim ends the criminal’s run of wealth, crime, or terror. The most sought-after identity is that of an infant, especially an infant who dies before the deceased child’s parents or guardians obtain a Social Security number.
Stealing the identity of a child gives a criminal up to eighteen years to apply for credit cards and home loans, commit crimes, obtain jobs, and exist in our society under the name of your child. Smart thieves know that discovery will be found in the mistakes they make. If they never use your true address, it will be hard for creditors to find parents or guardians, and, therefore, even harder to find the child. Smart thieves know that it is best to steal an identity on the go. In other words, steal as you move to another city or state, or steal and sell to undocumented workers who move across the United States.
Smart parents and guardians ignore credit agencies and others who say to wait until children turn sixteen or eighteen years of age to check their child’s credit history. Experts who understand child identity theft know that credit agencies are the problem in this situation. The credit agencies’ inability to devise a system that will track all Americans from birth, instead of accepting the first credit application they receive as the truth, is a significant problem.
Credit reporting agencies know they must, by law, provide one credit report for free each year and do not want millions of parents taking advantage of this by asking for one on their children. Do your child a favor and request a free credit report for your child now. Quick action will save both you and your child a lot of additional cleanup if child identity theft is caught in its infancy stages.
Question #55: What should I tell creditors if I suspect my child’s identity has been stolen?
The best advice I can give you is that you are not alone in this embarrassing task you are undertaking. I say this because it happens so frequently that each credit reporting agency, credit card business, banking institution, and mortgage lender has a fraud department. You will obviously want to contact the appropriate creditors if you suspect your child is a victim of identity theft so each can flag the account and reject any future charges.
When you call the agency or business, ask specifically for the fraud department and a fraud investigator. Describing several times to several people what has happened is a waste of your time and effort. Once you speak with a fraud investigator, record his or her name and direct telephone number in your journal or log book for future reference. If the fraud representative is able to assign you a case number, make sure to log the case number for future reference, as well.
Tell the fraud investigator that you are the parent or guardian of a child who received a bill in his or her name that reflects monies owed. If a bill was not received, but rather a credit report revealed the erroneous information, advise the investigator that you discovered the opened account on a credit report in the name of your child. Your phone conversation with the fraud investigator at the company you contacted should deal directly with the credit report entry involving their specific business, or with the bill received from their organization. They will not be able to assist you with any amounts owed with other businesses or organizations. You will need to repeat this process with each creditor who reports erroneous information on your child’s credit report. Always remember to keep details of your conversation in your identity theft journal or log book.
Your main discussion point when speaking with someone who thinks your child owes them money is that your child is of an age that makes him or her incapable of incurring the debt supposedly owed. If you give them any daylight of belief that your child possibly did incur the debt because they might be sixteen years old, for example, the creditor will be less likely to help you. Be adamant.
Now is a good time to mention documentation of delivery. Any item that a creditor requests you send to their company should be sent via certified mail or some type of private delivery or courier service that is able to provide you with a recipient’s signature and delivery confirmation receipt. While this might be inconvenient, it will certainly enhance your record keeping and hold agencies accountable down the road. I will also add that this extra step taken by you to secure potentially critical evidence will impress your law enforcement officer and legal team, should the documentation need to be presented in court. When you send anything to a creditor, make sure to document it in your child identity theft journal or log book.
When you converse with the creditor or business, do not let them be the only one asking questions. This puts you on the defense. Take an offensive position and ask who, within their organization, took the credit application. When did they take credit or identifying information? Are you allowed to obtain a copy of all paperwork filled out for proof of signature? If the person you are speaking with tells you that you cannot have a copy, ask him or her for the name of the contact person to whom your attorney can send a subpoena.
Record all conversations with creditors and businesses in your journal or log book. Keep records in your accordion folder or, if it gets too large to maintain, a binder. Keep specific sections of records together that deal with one business or company. For example, if your child has a mortgage reported as originated by an out-of-state lender, in addition to a few credit cards in your hometown, keep each company filed separately for quick and easy access of pertinent information. Each entry and debt must be cleared as a separate transaction on the credit report.
Be careful what you send to someone requiring proof of your child’s age. As an example, you can make your situation worse by making a copy of a birth certificate, mailing it to someone who may not have any identity theft protective measures in place, and open yourself up to identity theft again. Ask anyone who requests a copy of a birth certificate if there are alternative proof measures. For example, if you are dealing with a mortgage-related identity theft issue, can you take your documentation to a local bank branch and get the branch manager to confirm that your child’s birth certificate is certified by your state as authentic instead of sending the requested copy out in the mail? If you cannot, can you get a letter from the institution stating that they will be responsible for the information received and ensure the security of the data?
Question #56: What should I do if I am contacted by the Internal Revenue Service concerning my child and tax issues?
In February of 2012, the Associated Press published an article in which they said that 24 percent of the 279,000 identity theft claims received by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2011 involved Social Security numbers stolen and used in filing for fraudulent tax refunds, or used in obtaining employment in occupations the original Social Security number owner never occupied.1 The FTC reported that this was an increase of 8 percent over the previous year.
To make matters worse, the Associated Press article states that the claims only worsened in 2012 with the number of complaints being filed with the FTC, increasing thus far from 35,000 to 50,000 per week. The majority of the increase is reportedly due to tax and wage identity theft. With identity theft and the theft of Social Security numbers for undocumented workers on the rise, this problem is only going to get worse.
According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), a child identity thief uses stolen Social Security numbers for profit in an attempt to scam the government. The scam involves the theft of your child’s information to file a tax return claiming a fraudulent refund. The IRS claims that this is usually done early in the tax season so the thief can get it in before the real taxpayer files his or her own return, and receive the refund. When the real taxpayer files, they will be flagged.
You may have a young adult who works a part-time job on the weekends or afternoons after school. If this scam happens to your child, you will receive a notice from the IRS stating that two returns have been submitted using the same Social Se
curity number. Look for the contact telephone number and highlight it. Next, grab a notebook and start your journal or log book. There is a very strong possibility your child has been victimized.
The refund scam is but one problem you might encounter. Another might be a letter from the IRS stating that you have a bill due with penalties for wages that were earned in a previous year and not reported until now by the employer. In other words, your child earned wages and did not file a return because someone used your child’s Social Security number.
IRS problems need attention immediately. If not addressed immediately, the process to clear up your child’s name with the agency may be very complicated. Do two things as soon as possible. First, look for a point-of-contact name and phone number and make an outbound call to the IRS right away. Second, fill out an IRS Identity Theft Affidavit Form 14039. To obtain this form, go to the IRS website at www.irs.gov. If you report your issue to the IRS and do not receive resolution, call the IRS Identity Protection Specialized Unit at (800) 908-4490. Provide the IRS representative with the claim number and ask him or her the status of your claim. Record all information discussed in your identity theft journal or log book.
The IRS understands the constant scams that thieves attempt daily. Their website has a posted warning to the public advising them that the IRS does not send e-mails requesting your personal information.
The IRS publishes the following helpful documents concerning identity theft:
Publication 4535 Identity Theft Protection and Victim Assistance
Publication 4524 Security Awareness—Identity Flyer
Publication 4523 Beware of Phishing Scheme
IRS Tax Form 911 is a request for taxpayer advocate service assistance. The advocate service assistance is an independent organization within the IRS to assist taxpayers. If you are experiencing harm and economic suffering, use the advocate service to help you.
Question #57: Do I need to hire an attorney?
Hiring a lawyer is a personal decision. This decision must be made after careful consideration of your specific circumstances. Many situations can be resolved by making phone calls and writing letters. Other circumstances can be resolved once you file a police report. Some situations can even be resolved by taking your child to a bank or lender with their birth certificate to show the bank what a horrible financial decision the company has made by lending money or issuing credit to the fraudster.
There are situations, though, in which an attorney may be helpful or necessary to address legal matters. It could be that you have partial resolution to a theft situation, but you cannot get full clearance of your child’s name. In most cases, the main reasons or situations in which an attorney may be helpful are handling court actions, dealing with debt collectors, and resolving Internal Revenue Service issues. In these cases, the issues are so overwhelming that it will take an attorney to help you sift through the legalities and court actions.
You are welcome to research the issue on the web. You will find many opinions on whether an attorney is needed in an identity theft case. The decision is yours as a parent, but I recommend that you take advantage of what our laws have designated as free to you before you expend the cost of hiring an attorney who will charge you to possibly obtain information you can research on your own.
I have previously detailed for you that federal law mandates that the credit reporting agencies provide to each person one free credit report per calendar year. You can hire an attorney to call or write to the credit agency to request a credit report be issued on your behalf, but it is not necessary. Before you finish describing what you need to an attorney, you could have finished the phone call to a credit reporting agency and already have your free credit report on the way to your home. The other free service is a ninety-day credit alert. A credit alert is free and can be set up on your report with a simple phone call to a credit agency. For added theft protection, you may also request a credit freeze be placed on your report. This prohibits anyone from seeing your credit report information without your consent. Unlike a ninety-day credit alert, a credit freeze, is most cases, may be associated with a small fee.
So at what point will I know, in my dealings with businesses, that I have enough concern to need legal representation? As previously mentioned, when you receive a court legal action notice from a sheriff’s deputy or police officer, this means that a court date has already been set and legal action has begun. You cannot waste a scheduled court date trying to appear on your own with documents the court may or may not accept. For this issue alone, you need to seek legal representation immediately upon receiving any legal notice.
An attorney can file motions with the court to have the charges dismissed. They can file briefs setting forth the reasons for the requested dismissal. They can request subpoenas of individuals who might not want to testify, or for documents that businesses previously would not provide to you. Attorneys can request continuances on court dates that are too near to properly prepare your child’s defense.
An attorney is needed if the first correspondence your child receives from the IRS is a notice to appear in front of a hearing officer or to appear in the federal district court. An attorney can interface with the IRS for you and represent your interests. The attorney can also appear with you and help the court understand your child’s dilemma.
I recommend an attorney anytime you have a debt collector hounding you. It is very unlikely the debt collector will stop after the first contact, as most couldn’t care less about your situation; they just want their money. Expect debt collectors to call your home, your work, your cell, your relatives, and your friends. The threat of legal action, or the actual filing of legal action against these businesses, is your relief.
Question #58: What do I need to know about credit reporting agencies?
The first question to answer is, what is a credit reporting agency? The financial world refers to credit bureaus as “credit reporting agencies.” A credit reporting agency is a company that collects information on consumers to establish or determine creditworthiness. The basis of what is being determined is, how much of a risk are you? How well do you repay debts? What legal actions have been taken against you to collect amounts owed? Have you filed for bankruptcy? Is there a tax lien against your property?
Credit reporting agencies receive information from banks, credit card companies, mortgage lenders, utility companies, debt collectors, state courts, federal courts, and creditors, such as department stores. The federal government has two agencies responsible for regulation of the credit reporting industry. Oversight for credit reporting agencies comes from the FTC. The oversight for all national banks, who furnish credit agencies with information, is the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC).
For reference purposes, the contact information for the above-mentioned federal agencies is as follows:
The Federal Trade Commission
600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20580
Telephone Number: (202) 326-2222
Website: www.ftc.gov
The Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC)
Telephone Number: (202) 874-5000
Website: www.occ.treas.gov/
Formal written complaints with the OCC regarding a national bank or its operating subsidiary should be mailed to:
Customer Assistance Group
1301 McKinney Street
Suite 3450
Houston, TX 77010
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request mailing address:
Comptroller of the Currency
Disclosure Officer
Mail Stop 3-2
Washington, D.C. 20219
General Correspondence to OCC mailing address:
Comptroller of the Currency
Administrator of National Banks
Washington, D.C. 20219
Oversight and regulation is imperative, because the credit reporting agencies are private companies. According to Wikipedia, the five credit rep
orting agencies are “for-profit businesses and possess no government affiliation.”2 Covered in this book are the three major credit reporting agencies, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, though it is worth noting there are two other less recognizable agencies, Innovis and PRBC.
A credit score is established from the records kept by credit reporting agencies. Credit scores are used by credit card companies, banks, mortgage lenders, and other creditors to determine if you are worth the risk in lending money or purchasing power. A good credit score means that you will most likely receive a loan, mortgage, or credit card. A bad score means that you will probably not.
A child should not have a credit report, because they have not established credit. If someone establishes credit in a child’s stolen name, then a credit report is generated. As the child’s parent, you can obtain a copy of any report on your child. Just contact one of the credit reporting agencies and follow the suggested process below to request a credit report. I also suggest you obtain one for yourself at the same time you request one for your child.
Question #59: How can I obtain my child’s credit report?
According to the FTC’s website, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires each of the nationwide consumer reporting agencies to provide you with a free copy of your credit report, at your request, once every twelve months. The major credit agencies are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The federal agency responsible for enforcement of the FCRA is the FTC.
Now that you know what a credit reporting agency is and who and what regulates them, let’s look at obtaining your child’s report. You can get your free credit report by following the instructions listed below. Most research will tell you that there are three main credit agencies, but there are actually five, as referenced in the last section. Innovis and PRBC are not reported as one of the three major reporting agencies on the FTC website; therefore, I have chosen not to include their information.