How to Check Your Child's Credit Report

How to Check Your Child’s Credit Report

I’ve just obtained my 4-year old’s first passport, complete with adorable photo. We’re planning a family vacation in Nova Scotia, Canada this fall to enjoy the changing colors and attend a Celtic music festival. We’ll also visit a working farm where she’ll help milk a cow and churn butter. But while I plan our hikes and hayrides, something else entirely is on my mind…My child’s identity.

You see, her original birth certificate never came back to me from the Passport office. I didn’t request expedited service since we had plenty of time and there seemed to be no need to incur the additional cost. So her documents – a U.S. passport, a U.S. passport card and her original birth certificate – were returned to me in three separate first-class mailings. No tracking numbers. No signatures required for delivery. No evidence whatsoever that any of the three were ever sent or received.

To me, this is a deeply disturbing shortcoming in the Passport office’s process. At the time we submitted the passport application, I was not offered any option to have the documents returned with tracking numbers or I would have gladly taken it. Now, there is simply no way for me to know if her birth certificate was lost or simply set aside for later use by an enterprising identity thief.

Child identity theft

Children are perfect candidates for identity theft.  With a beautifully clean credit history, the sky is the limit for an intelligent and careful scam artist. In most cases, the perpetrator is a friend or family member. But many cases involve enterprising strangers who count on the probability that the theft won’t be detected for many years.

Child identity theft is much harder to detect and resolve than adult identity theft. Where adults are often made aware of fraudulent activity on the same day it happens, children can be victimized for a year or longer before any fraud is detected. And the fraud can begin many years after the initial opportunity (like the chance to pocket a birth certificate) presented itself. Adults spend an average of 12 hours over the course of a couple of weeks to resolve identity fraud against them, but child identity fraud can take nearly a year to detect and at least 44 hours over several months to clean up.

It’s wise to periodically check your child’s credit. It is critical to do so if you have reason to believe your child’s identity may have been compromised. If you have listed your child as a joint account holder at a financial institution, he or she may have a credit report. Otherwise, your child should not have a file at all.

How to check your child’s credit report

For adults, a copy of your credit report is only a click away. Simply visit AnnualCreditReport.com and verify your identity to receive a free copy every 12 months from each of the three major credit reporting agencies. For children, it’s not so simple.

Equifax, Experian and TransUnion allow parents and guardians whose identities have been verified to view a minor’s credit file. Here are the steps to find out if your child has one:

TransUnion: When it comes to checking your child’s credit, TransUnion is the friendliest. Simply complete the Child Identity Theft Inquiry form online. TransUnion will investigate and let you know whether any credit data exists. If a file exists for your child, you’ll need to provide some documentation to proceed. TransUnion’s email will tell you what to do next.

Experian: Mail a written request for information about your child’s credit report to Experian, P.O. Box 9554, Allen TX 75013. Your request must include:

·         A copy of your driver’s license

·         Proof of your address (bank statement, utility bill, etc.)

·         A copy of the child’s birth certificate

·         A copy of the child’s social security card

·         The child’s full name, including any suffix (Jr., III, etc.)

·         The child’s date of birth

·         Previous addresses for the last two years

All copies must be legible. Read more here. You can verify the above process by calling 1-888-397-3742. The phone prompts for this task are not terribly intuitive. To get the information, I pressed:

·         2 (I don’t need information about Experian Credit Educator)

·         2 (I don’t need to hear my rights as a California resident)

·         2 (I want to learn about fraud prevention services)

·         1 (I believe my information is being used fraudulently)

·         1 (I am calling about my minor child)

Equifax: Mail a written request to Equifax Information Services LLC – Minor Child, P.O. Box 105139, Atlanta, GA 30348-5139, and include the same items (listed above). Read more here.

Keep copies of all correspondence for your records.

If your child is found to have a credit report and it’s not the result of financial accounts you were aware of, you will need to place a fraud alert on his or her file. You’ll also need to take steps to remove fraudulent data from the report and notify any creditors. If you haven’t done so already, contact the police and file an identity theft report with the Federal Trade Commission. Finally, you may wish to freeze your child’s credit report.