Fixing Your Child’s Credit Score

I’ve written here about the risks of your child becoming an identity thief.  The risks can be higher than you may realize, and I gave good examples of how to tell if your child has been a victim.  But if your child’s identity was stolen, you still have to reverse the damage.  How exactly do you go about that?

Well one of your first steps is to get your child’s credit report.  You can request a free report from all the major bureaus.  From here practically everything that shows up on the report is fraudulent activity.  As your child is a minor, they cannot enter into legally binding contracts.  Anything that requires a contract is fraudulent activity, and likely the result of an identity thief.

File a police report immediately.  Contact your local police department, and show them the credit reports.  Since your child is a minor, you can use the police report to get the fraudulent activity cleared away.  Through the report you can also have a long term alert placed on your child’s credit.  This alert will warn anyone trying to use your child’s credit that they are being scammed.

Send a letter to the credit bureaus that you find have fraudulent activity.  Inform them that your child is a minor, and list the fraudulent entries on the report.  It’s also a good idea to ask them to place a fraud alert on your child, so that no theft can occur in the future.  Also make sure to include a copy of your police report with the correspondence.

Report the incident to the Federal Trade Commission.  From there you also need to contact the creditors listed on your child’s report.  Inform them of the situation, and find out how to reach them to give them a copy of the police reports.  This way you can have all the debts removed, clearing up your child’s credit completely.