An identity theft happens when someone steals your financial and personal information such as your name, Social Security number(SSN), driver’s license numbers, credit card numbers, ATM cards, Telephone calling cards or other identifying information like your date of birth, and uses it without your permission and your knowledge to commit fraud like spending money or other crimes. It can lead to thousands of dollars worth of debt in your name. Victims can loose job opportunities, be refused loans education, housing, cars or even get arrested for crimes that they didn’t commit. Victims can find themselves spend their money and time on cleaning up their credit records. Recent surveys show there are currently 7-10 million victims of identity thefts per year. Recently thieves have opted to steal even the children’s identity. This can go unnoticed since the child will not usually use it for 10 –18 years and will used it only after many years when he will be looking for a job or be trying to get a license. The thief can use it for almost a decade without being caught. So try and get a credit report of your child also.

Two types of identity theft are “account takeover” and “application fraud”. In account takeover the thief obtains your credit account information and uses it to buy products or services using your credit card or uses just the account number and expiration date. In application fraud the thief used the SSN and other identifying information to open a new account or accounts in your name .the monthly account statements are mailed to the imposters new account and so the victim will not be aware of the theft.

To lessen your chance of being victim of identity theft-

• Check your credit report at least once a year. Now you can get free credit report online instantly.
• Do not give your accounts number to someone who calls or emails you.
• Shred all your financial statements
• Call 888-5OPTOUT or go online to www.optoutprescreen.com to have your name removed from the credit bureau’s marketing list. This will limit the number of pre-approved credit offers you receive.
• Do not carry your Social Security card with you.
• before disposing of your computer use the wipe utility program and not just delete function to wipe out all the data.

Even though victims will not be charged more tha $50 or more in most cases they needn’t pay any. Sometimes they will be left with a bad credit report and can take a lot of time and trouble to regain the credit score.

• If you have been a victim of identity theft contact the fraud department of any of the three major credit bureaus-- Equifax, Experian or TransUnion (800-680-7289) to place a fraud alert on your credit account. This means that any company checking your credit report to verify about new accounts will be requested to contact you before opening any new accounts or making any changes to the existing account. You need to contact only one of the credit bureaus to put fraud alert, it will alert the rest of the two bureaus. You can contact the three credit bureaus and get a credit report from each.

• File a police report in your local area depending on where theft occurred. Get a formal document from them and include the police report with your letter to creditors and others who want to get proof of the crime.
• Close the accounts that have been tampered or opened fraudulently.
• File a complaint to FTC
• For more details go to http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs17a.htm

Guard your SSN number as well as your child’s.

Call 1-877-ID-THEFT, the FTC’s toll-free ID Theft Hotline.