A child’s Social Security number is an easy target for identity thieves. It offers a clean slate to establish credit or employment and the crime can go undetected for years most often being discovered after the child reaches 18 and attempts to establish his own credit history.
Debix customers Tanya and Gary Allen signed their son up for Debix and learned five different people in Georgia were using their 17 year old’s social security number to obtain credit, utilities and legal employment status. The thieves racked up over $58,000 in bad debt. Fortunately, Debix was able to identify and stop the thieves as well as restore the child’s credit before it becomes and issue for him.
According to the FBI, Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the country. In the most recent survey, 9.9 million individuals over 18 were victims with losses totaling over $52 billion in a single year. This is one of the reasons the Los Angeles Police Protective League will provide Debix Identity Protection to approximately 8,000 officers. LAPPL Director, Sergeant John R. Mumma says the League wants to secure its members with the best solution on the market, “the LAPPL selected Debix as its Identity Theft Protection provider after a lengthy review of businesses in the industry. The product Debix provides is an outstanding fit for the needs of Los Angeles Police Officers and their families. “
The League hopes to prevent officers from experiences like the one Officer Adriana Sanchez went through when someone in another state destroyed her good credit. “I was completely blindsided, she had stolen my identity and ran up $70,000 in bad debt. Everything was compromised from my SSN to my date of birth. I felt completely violated.” Officer Sanchez invested her time and energy to eventually bring the thief to justice. To restore her identity, she spent hours on the phone with multiple creditors, sending pages of notarized documents to prove she was not the criminal. Officer Sanchez said the experience was “such a nightmare” she wished Debix had been available to her then to track down the thief and work with creditors to repair damage to her credit.
LAPPL President sergeant Paul Weber is aware of other officers who have been identity theft victims and knows it is easy to see how it can happen when your information is so accessible but he was caught off guard when he discovered someone had stolen his daughter’s identity. Weber says when she turned 18 and tried to open a checking account, she was denied. “Someone in another city had already opened a Bank of America checking account with her name and SSN. She had to prove she was the legitimate owner of her identity. It was a real eye opener for me. I didn’t think anyone would use my daughter’s identity. It is so easy and in the case of a child, can go undetected for years.”
During a trial program offered to a small group of Los Angels Police Officers, 27 children were signed up and Debix found 2 of the children had someone using their Social Security Number. Officer Jensen, who trains new recruits for the Los Angeles Police Department, signed up her three young sons. Debix found records indicating someone had been using one of her son’s Social Security Number from the time he was an infant. Debix investigators were able to identify the person using the number, alert the credit bureaus and clean the child’s credit file. Officer Jensen is “beyond excited” that the situation was discovered and corrected. “This was the easiest procedure I have had to go through. Being a police officer, I know the run around everyone gets but this was so painless on my side. I told everyone you need to get this – it is so nice.”
Debix Identity Protection requires banks and creditors to take extra precautions before opening new accounts including sending an instant authorization phone call requesting the consumer’s permission. Debix is the only solution available today that utilizes an electronic Identity Protection NetworkTM that protects individuals during the critical moment of an attack and immediately connects customers to an investigator to pursue the criminal while the case is hot. Debix also provides insurance and identity restoration services to protect against other attacks including employment, medical and criminal identity theft.
Jeffrey Curtsinger enrolled his 14-year-old son in the Debix Identity Protection Network after being offered the product when his son’s information had been breached. After a thorough database search, Debix investigators found that a man in the Los Angeles area has used this child’s SSN since 1997.
The thief established good credit for the first 10 years and was able to finance a $605,000.00 home in Sherman Oaks, CA through a first and second mortgage with Litton and Citi Banks. He also used the boy’s SSN to open several credit accounts.
Last August the home loans went into default and the bank foreclosed. Additionally, a Chase credit account with $2329.00 in unpaid charges has gone into collections.
Police reports and fraud affidavits have been filed. Debix OnCall Investigator, Katie Hall, identified the suspect and discovered there is no record of him existing before 1997 with any other SSN. Credit records indicate he was born around 1966. Katie is working with local law enforcement to apprehend and question the suspect.
Good morning everyone. I’m very excited to announce that we have launched a webcast with the FBI on Child Identity Theft. We have a great group of presenters including, Ramona Warner, Internet Crime Specialist and SSA Leslie D. Hoppey, Supervisory Special Agent both from the FBI’s Cyber Crime Division. On the Debix side we have Katie Hall, OnCall Investigator and Julie Fergerson our VP of Emerging Technologies. They’ll talk about child identity theft and what you can do to help prevent it. I’ve included a brief video to give you an idea of what to expect in the full version.
There’s a common misconception that identity contamination (someone else using your SSN under a different name) is a victimless crime. Unfortunately, as Lindsey discovered, that is not true. As I mentioned earlier, suffering from identity contamination can be just as painful and difficult to recover from as traditional identity theft.
Below is a snippet from a conversation I recently had with Julie Fergerson, our VP of Emerging Technologies which highlights the problem.
“As I talk about this problem with other Moms, the first question is always, ‘what does it mean that their kid is a victim of identity theft?’ It means the child will not be able to use his credit when he needs it for things as important as college loans, first apartments or even a first job. As part of my research, I met Lindsey, a college student at Texas State, who is living this problem. When she applied for her first internship competing against 400 other candidates, she was thrilled when she got the job and received the company welcome gift. Unfortunately, a few weeks later, she received a letter rescinding her job offer – she was told she was not hireable because someone else was using her social security number. After what she calls ‘a full time job’ of working to clear her name for six months, she was able to restore her identity and get the job.”
Debix has also identified several other outstanding issues with Lindsey’s identity and is getting them cleared up as you read this.
To hear it in Lindsey’s own words, check out the above video.
I’m very excited to be finally able to talk about the Child Identity Theft Study. This research, performed by Javelin, analyzed 500 children (ages 17 and under) who were enrolled in Debix between mid-July and mid-August. We were amazed to discover that 26 kids had credit reports where none of them should have one at all. That’s 5% or in other worlds, if you walk into your average elementary school, that’s one kid in every single classroom, whom already has their credit messed up in some way. Other key findings include:
The study discovered 5% of the children had one or more credit reports using their social security number (SSN), and 54% of those children were victims of identity theft.
Among those 5%, the children had on average $12,779 in fraudulent or wrongly assigned debt.
While the study found that children were more likely to find problems in their credit histories as they aged, an astonishing 12% of those with problems were age 5 and under.
A handful of cases stand out as especially severe: one child had seven identities listed under his SSN, with several thousand dollars in medical bills, apartment rentals, and credit accounts in collections; another child’s SSN was associated with over $325,000 in debt.
One in four victims in the study has bills or lines of credit in collections or foreclosure, while almost two‐thirds of these children had fake or wrong names listed under their SSN.
42% of those children with erroneous credit reports only had credit files at one credit bureau, meaning their fraud could have gone unnoticed without checking all three.
Kids are a great target for identity theft, because their credit is a clean slate and the younger you target them, the longer you have before the act will be discovered. As a result, the corresponding amount of fraud that is committed prior to discover can be significantly higher for children than adults. This of course begs the question, what can you do to protect your children’s identities? At bare minimum we recommend that you do the following:
Keep your child’s social security number private
Shred sensitive documents before discarding
Beware of what sensitive information you (or your children) share
Keep physical and electronic documents locked up
We’d also love it if you’d buy our child identity protection service ($20 per year) that finds and fixes these problems just as it did for the children in this study. Debix is the only child product that continuously monitors the three credit bureaus and ChoicePoint, along with utilities and other public databases for abuse of your children’s identities. Most importantly we also provide the same insurance and restoration services that we do for adults so that should something happen you and your children are fully protected.
Albert Merritt signed himself and his 17-year-old daughter up for the Debix Identity Protection Network after reading about us in Money Magazine.
To determine if a child’s identity is being used without permission, Debix researchers check multiple data banks. In this case, the search revealed Stephanie had a credit file with unpaid debt and the case was immediately assigned to a Debix OnCall Investigator.
They discovered that someone using the name Curtis Webb abused Ms. Merritt’s Social Security number in 2005 to open two different accounts with Sprint and left over one thousand dollars in unpaid bills. Debix worked with Stephanie’s parents to file police reports and a fraud affidavit and then removed the credit file and restored her identity.
Watch the video to hear Mr. Merritt tell the story in his own words.
Identity Theft isn’t always malicious, in fact, sometimes the perpetrator doesn’t even know they have committed the crime. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) calls this identity contamination. Unfortunately for the victim, it can have the same impact as deliberate fraud and it isn’t any easier to clean up.
Greg White recently enrolled his 17 year daughter in Debix and quickly discovered that someone was already using her Social Security number (SSN). In fact, the person had been using it for 25 years. Yes, you read that correctly, her SSN was being abused for eight years before she was even born! And it was all due to an accidental transposition of some of the numbers in the SSN.
Although there was no malice, the fact remained that Greg’s daughter still had a credit file using her SSN with over $325,000 in debt. Needless to say, this put the Whites’ plans for college loans and scholarships in jeopardy. Fortunately with the help of Debix OnCall Investigators, Ms. White’s credit file will be cleared and her identity restored in time for her loan applications to go through.
Click on the video above to hear Greg White tell his story.
Last week the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported that a former PTA president was sentenced for identity theft. Kelly Mahaffey will serve three years after she was convicted of nine counts of identity theft (though police have evidence of a total of 57 potential victims) and an assortment of related crimes. The Deputy District Attorney, Lalit Kindani called Ms. Mahaffey “a poster child for identity theft.” Her victims ranged from her own dead mother to a six-year old girl. I found the child part particularly concerning, and it made me extra happy that my own kid is now covered by Debix.
Hi and welcome again to the blog. I’m David, Debix’s Blogger-in-Residence. I’ve been involved with Debix for over three years now and worked in security and privacy for almost 15 years
A few years ago, I was at a security conference and a good friend introduced me to Bo Holland, our CEO, and said we should talk. He gave me a demo of what eventually became the Debix Identity Network and I was immediately hooked. As Bo likes to say, “It’s easy for me to convince the bank I’m you, but it’s impossible for me to convince you I’m you.” Debix’s system closes the loop between the credit requester, the bank and me, which enables me to better protect myself. What I really like about this is that I now have much more control of how my personal information gets used.
This blog will have posts on a range of issues related to identity theft. We’ll cover new research, current events and news, stories from some of our customers, and trends in both attacks and legislation. You’ll also hear directly from members of our OnCall Private Investigators Team as they deal with interesting cases as well as guest posts from security and privacy executives. I hope you enjoy the blog and look forward to hearing your feedback in the comments section.
