This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine.
Have you ever had someone steal your credit card number? Do you watch your statements each month to make sure there is no unusual activity in your accounts? Did you know that your children’s identities are at risk just as much as yours are? More than 50,000 children in Florida become victims of identity theft every year, and more than $100 million is stolen every year from children whose identities have been compromised.Protect Your Child’s Identity
The first time someone used our credit card illegally, it was local. Someone bought gas and clothes. Another time, someone stole checks out of our mailbox and created their own. It was easy to get the credit card company to stop payment on the cards and issue us new ones. Working with the bank and the stolen money from our account took a lot longer and was more involved. With those experiences we became pretty vigilant about our money. Later when someone bought lingerie in Tokyo and another started a subscription in Moscow, we were on it immediately and the credit company took care of everything. We were lucky, though! We were looking for problems. Who looks out for our kids when they do not even have accounts to watch?
Make sure you protect your child’s identity and stop identity theft before it starts! Thanks to the new Florida law, parents can easily set up credit records for their children and freeze them. This effectively blocks thieves from using a child’s personal information to open a credit card, mortgage or other financial account. By freezing your child’s credit, you are blocking others from using it.
To create a credit report for your child and freeze it, contact the following credit reporting agencies: Equifax, Experian and Trans Union. Details on the documents these agencies will need and sample letters are available at www.FreshFromFlorida.com/ProtectYourChild. The fee to freeze your child’s credit is a low, one-time fee of $10 per agency, or waived if your child is already a victim of identity theft. Any parent or legal guardian of minors up to 16-years-old may sign up their child. The freeze lasts until the parent contacts the credit bureau to remove the freeze, or until the child reaches adulthood and asks for the freeze to be removed.
Identity thieves target kids because they generally have clean credit histories, and years will pass before the crime is detected. It’s never too early to start protecting your child from identity theft.
I am not familiar with other states, but I recommend parents everywhere look into doing something for your children. Private information is just too easy to get these days. I think we owe it to our kids to do what we can to protect them.
