Parent Alert: Guard Your Children’s Social Security Numbers

August 18th, 2010. By AbiK

Every parent knows that in the midst of all the anticipation of that joyous little bundle…that new addition to the family…there’s someone at the hospital pushing papers in front of you that you’ll need to sign in order to secure a social security number for your not-even-born-yet child. They sort of tell you it’s a “convenience”—that it’ll save you the hassle of applying for a social security number for your child later. And you think, “Wow, that’s great how they just handle everything at the hospital!”

And it is. Until you read the latest news on a growing identity theft tactic that targets children’s social security numbers.

At first, it seems a bit odd—why go after a child’s social security number? After all, there isn’t even any credit history associated with it. But that’s just the point…it’s got super-clean credit. And it’s also unlikely to be used or needed for quite a few years. So why not “borrow” it?

See, it used to be that credit and identity thieves would try things like applying for credit with a deceased individual’s social security number—heck, why not right? They’re dead and who would ever know?

But now that a social security number can be checked out in the Social Security Death Index on any computer, it’s fairly easy to detect when a social security number belongs—or belonged—to someone who’s no longer with us.

And, as any idiot knows, you can’t just make up numbers—you need a legitimate-looking 9-digit number in order for it to pass as a valid social security number on a credit application.

So how does this all work? Here’s the step-by-step…

1. Someone is looking for easy credit or to repair their credit.

2. They hear about a scheme where you can buy a number—a Credit Privacy Number (CPN—also called a Credit Profile Number) that is remarkably similar to the format of a social security number (ie, 3 digits-2 digits-4 digits)—but it’s never referred to as a social security number or a replacement for one—that’s the scammers ace in the hole in terms of self-protection—they can then claim they’ve never said the CPN should be used in place of a SS#.

3.The company or website selling the CPNs has scoured social security numbers for those that do not appear to be in use—ie, they have no credit profile attached to them. In many instances, these unutilized or dormant numbers will belong to either a child, or someone who’s in prison. By the way, if you think it’s difficult to find such numbers, it’s not. A little bit of deductive reasoning over at the Social Security Number Verification Service (SSNVS) is all it takes to figure out which series of numbers have recently been exhausted—and yes, in most instances will, therefore, belong to a child.

4. The customer buys the CPN and uses it in place of a social security number (remember, it actually IS a social security number but the customer does not necessarily know that) on credit applications. Because there has been no previous credit history associated with the CPN (aka SS#), the credit is approved and a new credit record is now associated with the number.

5. It’s credit-a-go-go for the newly minted big-spender and the child’s credit history is basically destroyed.

As you can imagine, and as is typical with identity theft issues regarding social security numbers, once the damage is done, it’s done and the best way to prevent it or mitigate is to be on top of your children’s social security numbers by spot checking any activity associated with them. Yes, it may cost a bit to request the credit reports from TransUnion, Experian and Equifax, but it’s well worth the peace of mind.

Tags: Identity Theft, Social Security

This was posted on Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 at 10:13 am and is filed under Consumer Fraud . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.