Dale Penn

Many of you who have kids may have wondered if your little crumb snatchers are vulnerable to identity theft. If that thought has ever crossed your mind, you are not alone.

My first clue that our own kids were potential victims, surfaced when unsolicited mail began showing up in the mailbox. Credit card offers with the names of pre-teens and teenagers are not uncommon.

If you have not opted-out of junk mail, you are probably still seeing offers from predatory lenders arrive pretty frequently. “Don’t they know that little Bobby has no job or income?”

Each year, experts estimate that more than 3 million people discover that a new credit account has been opened up in their name. Your child’s vital data has value in the dark world of identity thieves.

Many fraudsters troll in these waters and they know that their crimes could possibly go undetected simply because of the age of the victim. Targeting victims who are unaware of their exposure makes the chance of detection slimmer than usual.

Not only do young victims remain in the dark, but their parents may not uncover the damage for many years. When the young person tries to get a driver’s license or applies for a credit card, they discover a crime that could be years old with no way to fight back.

Here are 6 steps parents should take for the protection of their child’s identity.

1. Never disclose your child’s social security number unless it is mandatory- such as school records, income tax returns or medical emergencies.
2. Keep copies of birth certificates under lock and key and share them only when the information is mandatory.
3. Don’t be intimidated or afraid to ask anyone who requests a personal document WHY that specific information is needed. Also ask WHAT steps they take to safeguard the information.
4. Don’t let a child or adolescent carry a copy of his or her Social Security card in their purse or wallet.
5. Watch the mail for credit offers or other personalized mail to your child. These early warning signs can signal danger ahead or possibly danger in progress.
6. Opt out of junk mail for you and your kids. There are companies that will allow you to get your children’s name off of the direct marketers lists along with your own. Check out greendimes.com for a great example of this type of service.

You can also request a free credit report from each of the major credit reporting agencies once a year for your child. If the child is under age 13, the request must be in writing.

For more information go to annualcreditreport.com, a website operated by the three credit reporting agencies. While there, you can request a free copy of your own report.

Finally, remember that privacy leakage occurs often on the web and especially at social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. These companies do what they can to help monitor activity on their sites, but ultimately your child’s identity safety practices are your responsibility.

I appreciate the value of my intact identity profile…don’t you?

It has been too long since my last post. The past month has been a whirlwind for me as a result of my vacation to China.

As anyone who travels regularly will tell you, keeping tabs on your identity is a both a necessary evil and a blessing beyond belief when traveling abroad. Venturing off to China during the Olympics is certainly a test of all the safeguards that are supposed to be in place to make sure that you are really the real you when you travel.

Passing through customs, immigration and the tightest security I have ever witnessed gave me both a sense of awe and gratitude. Chinese security officials had their hands full and the world witnessed one of the most spectacular displays of pomp, ceremony and athletic achievement ever organized.

At the same time, security was at an all time high for good reason. The eyes of the world were fixed on Beijing and our hosts wanted the occasion to shine. I think we all agree …..it did.

The 12 hour flight from the West Coast gave me a chance to catch up on some of the latest and greatest scams we are facing here at home. One that caught my eye in particular was the number of credit card skimming cases which the Secret Service is investigating around the country.

In my seminars, I magically produce and vanish a card “reader” which could be called a “skimming device” if it fell into the wrong hands. The problem is that we are so used to seeing them, that we don’t even think about sliding our credit and debit cards into a device at an ATM, bank or retail location.

The challenge is that these high tech and deceptive skimmers don’t prevent the machine we are accessing from working and can be painted to match the color of any legitimate machine. According to USA Today, there are major investigations going on right now in California, Delaware, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Washington.

In Washington state alone, the number of recent victims could total as high as 250 people with losses totaling $500,000. The combined total of the cases totals between $1 million to $3.5 million stolen from victims.

The obvious first step for self protection is awareness and a keen eye for anything that may look suspicious. Thieves quite often place a small camera on or near the pump or ATM which records pin numbers as you key them in.

Diligent, constant awareness of irregularities and unauthorized activity on your accounts is your personal responsibility. The good news for American consumers is that reporting fraudulent or suspicious activity generally stops or reverses damage done with credit cards and most debit cards bearing the Mastercard or Visa logos. Irregularities must be reported in a “timely fashion” which generally means 60 days or less from discovery of the event.

Yes, old fashioned skimming is alive and well and being dispensed at an ATM or gas pump near you.