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Minors and ID Theft
"I never expected to have to bust a seven year old."
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By Nzinga Moore
You’ve heard the stories of drug dealers using their kids for runners,
or even parents making personal investments or donations using their kids’
names. There are so many ways people use their children as a financial front.
But there’s a growing problem of parents committing ID theft, using their
kids’ names to pay bills and sign up for credit cards, breaking the law
within the privacy of their own homes.
Youth Radio’s Nzinga Moore reports on what’s driving parents to
use their kids’ identities. She found young people caught in their parents’ finances willing to share their stories. Their names have been changed to protect
their identities.
My first summer job was as a courtesy caller for a cable company. I
spent day after day telling customers their service was being cut off because
they didn’t pay on time. I never expected to have to bust a seven year
old who had no clue what was going on.
It usually starts simple…a single father fills out a newspaper bill but
the name on the bill isn’t his.
HEATHER (on tape)
And here are the newspapers that
I’m supposedly paying for…
NZINGA
This 17 year old, Heather, shares a lot of responsibilities with her
dad around the house. So when she found out her name was on the address label
of the family newspaper…it wasn’t a big deal…at first.
HEATHER (on tape)
But ever since we got the overdue notice, it kind of concerns
me that it’s gonna effect my credit down the line.
NZINGA
An overdue newspaper bill might not ruin Heather’s credit, but
in the worst cases, that’s exactly what happens. Many times kids don’t
find out parents have borrowed their social security numbers for household bills…until
they are 18 and try to open a bank account or apply for a credit card and get
denied.
The Federal Trade Commission reports that child-identity theft makes
up only 2 percent of all ID theft cases, but experts say the crime is massively
under-reported. My supervisor at the cable company never investigated the case
with the seven-year-old. But these cases are getting the attention of lawmakers.
California legislator Patricia Bates has introduced a bill with harsh penalties
for parents after hearing story after story of id theft…like the story
of a teenager with a terrible credit rating.
BATES (on tape)
And the question is how can that happen, when they actually up
until the age of around 16 or 18, haven’t been involved in commerce of
any kind?
NZINGA
She says these cases cross class lines…wealthy and poor families
get caught up in these scenarios.
Johnny’s mom put a phone account in his name when he was young. He’s
now twenty-three and the account still isn’t paid off. But he doesn’t
want to see his mom being fined or being put in jail because she used his ID.
JOHNNY (on tape)
I mean my mom I couldn’t ever repay her enough for the
things that she’s done for me in my life, so. It’s minute compared
to all the good things she’s done for me in my life. But I think some
parents definitely deserve it because they could just run wild with it.
NZINGA
In extreme cases, parents have forged birth certificates. Depending
on how bad the situation gets, young people can petition for a new social security
number. But that’s rare. It’s also rare for relatives to turn in
their family members.
Sometimes I do wonder what happened to the seven-year-old I called in my days
as a courtesy caller for the cable company. Who knows how much he owes now…
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