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Recently I had a conversation with a woman who told me about her daughter’s social security number being stolen and used. Her daughter is 19 and the last year applied for a job. In the course of the employer running a credit check, the employer discovered that the daughter’s social security number was being used by two other people and had been used as early as 2002. Now the mom is in the process of meeting with detectives and trying to get her daughter’s credit history cleaned up and to prosecute the two individuals using her daughter’s credit. She said that her daughter may also have problems getting financial aid for college because of the identity theft. She said from this experience she learned that you can be checking your children’s credit history for free.
I knew about annualcreditreport.com for myself but I had never thought about using it to check my children’s credit report. I thought it was a great idea to keep an eye on, especially in their teenage years, so if you find out someone has been using their social security number, you can hopefully get it cleared up before they go to college and apply for aid, or apply for jobs where a credit history is checked.
Anyway, I personally tried to do it but my oldest daughter is only 7 and when I tried to request a report it said the minor must be at least 13 years old. If the child is younger, you still can get a report by mail, but you have to send in a lot of paperwork (including copy of birth certificate, copy of your driver’s license and some other stuff). I decided that since I don’t have reason to believe her soc sec # is being used I am not going to do anything right now, but when she is 13 I want to start pulling reports for her too.
Has anyone on here been successful at getting a free credit report for their teenage children? I just had never thought about it until the lady mentioned it and I thought it was a great idea.
I knew about annualcreditreport.com for myself but I had never thought about using it to check my children’s credit report. I thought it was a great idea to keep an eye on, especially in their teenage years, so if you find out someone has been using their social security number, you can hopefully get it cleared up before they go to college and apply for aid, or apply for jobs where a credit history is checked.
Anyway, I personally tried to do it but my oldest daughter is only 7 and when I tried to request a report it said the minor must be at least 13 years old. If the child is younger, you still can get a report by mail, but you have to send in a lot of paperwork (including copy of birth certificate, copy of your driver’s license and some other stuff). I decided that since I don’t have reason to believe her soc sec # is being used I am not going to do anything right now, but when she is 13 I want to start pulling reports for her too.
Has anyone on here been successful at getting a free credit report for their teenage children? I just had never thought about it until the lady mentioned it and I thought it was a great idea.
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