Protecting Your Child's Identity @McAfeeConsumer

Today on Steve Harvey, 7 years old and $40,000 in debt.

Nearly half a million children have their identities ripped off every year.

How to protect yourself and your kids from identity theft.

I'm here to help. You and I will get through this together. Well, buckle up, 'cause you in for a wild one Welcome to "Daytime Today." I got a good show for you. Look, we all know someone who's piled up the debt and wrecked their credit, right?

Yeah.

But imagine living the consequences of all that before your 10th birthday. Parents, listen up, because it's not just yourself you need to worry about. It's your kids, too. Once every 3 seconds, someone's identity is stolen. It might have already happened to one of your kids and you don't even know it. This is one segment that you can't miss because we'll reveal how these crooks pull off their schemes and how you can protect your kid from becoming a victim.

Coming up next, shocking stories of children and identity theft. She had racked up almost $15,000 worth of debt. Can this disturbing criminal trend be stopped?

And there's nothing you can do?

There's nothing that no one will do.

Listen, folks, we're back and we're talking about how criminals worldwide are stealing kids' identities, leaving them with heartbroken credit debt before they're even collecting an allowance. Well, that's exactly what happened to Angie and Debbie's children. Uh, with us now is security consultant and author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen, Please welcome Robert Siciliano. Hi, Robert. How you doing, man? Okay. What recourse do parents have in this situation?

So, common sense would say that this shouldn't happen in the first place. Uh, the Social Security Administration will not issue a new Social Security number for a child. They don't deem this as a reason why it should be done. Beyond that, uh, parents should apply for a fraud alert under their child's name. And a fraud alert basically is another layer of authentication where the creditor calls that person to see if they're in fact in fact opening up that new line of credit. If your child is a victim of identity theft, then you can get what's called a credit freeze. And a credit freeze locks down their credit so nobody can open up any new accounts under their name, basically locking down their Social Security number.

Okay, both of these parents are having trouble because they can't access their kids' credit report until age 18. I mean, is that—

So, you're under the age of 18, you're not legally bound to contracts, so you shouldn't have a credit report in the first place. They think that you are at least 18 because the identity thief applied for credit under that baby's name and changed the age to say 18 or 22.

Wow. How is it that credit card companies don't recognize stolen numbers?

The system of credit is based on the honor system, which means that when somebody fills out an application for credit, they can plug in a person's name and their address and their social and lie about their age. And once they apply for that credit, if the credit bureaus don't actually see a credit report there, they'll they'll actually establish a new report, a new line of credit under that baby's name and social but with a different age. It's a flawed system.

Okay, now explain to me how there's this market for these stolen cards, identities, and all.

So there have been, uh, thousands of data breaches that have occurred in the past decade, and along with all the phishing emails that we receive where we plug in our personal information, there are loads of credit card numbers out there that are being sold on the black market. They call these credit card numbers dumps, and the dumps basically are your name, your address, sometimes your Social Security number, the credit card verification code, and the credit card number itself. Those numbers can sell for pennies to $5 to $100 depending on the actual limits.

Okay, how do you find out if you're on one of these dump sites?

So doing searches online can sometimes help, you know, doing a Google search, you can find a little bit of information about yourself. Identity theft protection services often are connected to these online chat rooms, these underground chat rooms. And so for a small fee monthly, you can get some inside information. So you have like good guy hackers, you know, good security professionals that are actually infiltrating these chat rooms. The FBI, CIA, Secret Service, they know what's going on there. And some of that information is available generally through paid services.

OK. What steps should they take to protect themselves from identity theft?

Well, first and foremost, apply for a fraud alert like every 3 months. And when you apply for a fraud alert as an adult, you're gonna get that fraud alert and it's gonna last for 90 days. As a child, when you apply for a fraud alert, they should say, well, we can't find a credit report. The credit bureaus should say, we can't find a credit report under this name and social. And when that happens, that's a good thing, okay?

Right.

So that means if there's no credit report, that means the kid's in the clear. Beyond that—

But if they say they find a credit report—

Then that means—

And then they start watching it, that means it's already stolen.

Exactly. That's when you want to get a credit freeze for that child. As adults, we should all have credit freezes, and only a child that has had their identity stolen can get a credit freeze.

It just doesn't flat out make any sense, man.

That's right. It is a broken system, uh, and it's only with screaming from rooftops with shows like this that's gonna— that the FTC, the creditors, the credit bureaus are gonna make significant change in the system.

Wow, well, I'll tell you what, here's what I think that people at home, we've learned a couple of disturbing things here. So you can't put a credit freeze on a child's credit report if it hasn't been stolen.

Right.

Then and only then can you put a credit freeze on it, but the theft has already occurred.

Correct.

Adults should all put credit freezes on their accounts.

Yes. So fraud alerts and credit freezes are both definite layers of protection to keep you in tune with the status of your identity.

If you could go on one of these dump sites and you found your name, could you just buy your own name and then you be the one that own it for $50 and then you clear? I don't know.

I don't know if it's worth it.

I'm just asking.

So here's the thing. We live in a database society. And our information isn't just on one database. It's on hundreds, if not thousands. You know, consider your information breached. It's already out there. That's why, you know, we have to be proactive and do what's necessary right now because it's probably already out there in the wild.

Okay. Folks out there, for more information on what you can do, we'll have these facts laid out for you on my website, SteveHarveyTV.com. Thanks to all my guests.

Thank you.

I'm sorry for all of this. I wish you the best. I wish I had an answer for you. It's really sad. We'll be right back, folks.