Let’s just say, all hypothetical and whatnot, that someone with a known history of non-payment of certain bills decided they wanted a telephone. Said someone would be unable to get a phone in their own name, and they know this. So they think to themselves, Hey, I’ve got a 2 year old with perfect credit. I’ll just use his name and SSN with my birthday and, BAM! Telephone.
And then they actually do it. How illegal is this, how is it that the phone company doesn’t know they just (<ahem> hypothetically) gave service to a child, and what the heck (if anything) am I supposed to do about (this completely imaginary, totally not real) situation?
As an aside, for anyone who might know, how super screwed is this (imaginery, hypothetical) kid’s credit going to be and how can he fix it in his later years?
It’s not a very good idea. One problem facing kids as they get older is identity theft committed by their parents. When they turn 18 and try to get some forms of credit-dependent student aid, or rent an apartment, or buy a car or whatever, they’ve got bad credit, and it’s from their parents “borrowing” their credit.
Speaking not from much knowledge, but more from experience, it’s a pain in the neck to try to fix it when one of my parents “borrowed” my credit. Sometimes, they don’t take you seriously if you are not taking all steps to prevent such fraud, but I didn’t really want to file a police report against my mother and get her in possible legal trouble.
As for how badly it messed up my credit, on one credit report, once I cleared my mother’s charges up, my credit score jumped almost 200 points.
(I will grant that most of this fraud occurred after I was 18, but if it hypothetically happens once, who’s to say it wouldn’t hypothetically occur again in another bad credit situation?)
If YOU are the victim of something that happened to you as a child, and you’re trying to correct something that happened to you while you were a child, then email me and I’ll consider reopening this.
If YOU are considering doing this illlegal thing, then don’t bother emailing me.
I’d like to apologize again to samclem for the confusion.
Basically, there’s a person rather close to me in my life who’s doing this to his son. I know this boy’s parents aren’t going to pay this bill. I know they are going to destroy this kid’s credit. I also know they have a few other utilities they’ll need to get for which they’ll likely use either this boy’s or his sister’s name. While I think it’s disgusting and stupid and just incredibly irresponsible, I’d rather not send these people to prison, which is why I’d like to know just how illegal this is.
I’m a total chickenshit and I’m still not sure if/when/how I’ll go about reporting it. I’m not even sure I don’t want them to go to jail, now that I think about it. It would serve them right, after all. Again, my apologies for the confusion.
When I worked for a telephone company and this sort of thing was reported to us, we pretty much did nothing unless there was proof to go along with it, and even then there wasn’t much that we did. I think pretty much we just switched the service into the adult parent’s name and flagged the SSN so it couldn’t be used again. IMHO we would have been within our rights to have the parent arrested for theft of service but we didn’t. If you know this is happening you can call the phone company and see if they do anything different, or you can report it to the police.
As far as “how illegal” it is, it’s every bit as illegal as any other illegal act. There’s no such thing as degree of illegality. Either something’s illegal or it’s not.
Not that this means there aren’t differentiations made between how seriously different crimes are punished (felony vs misdemeanor).
Basically, you’re saying they’re prepared to commit fraud.
Gee, what’s the moral dilemma? Call every company you know they deal with, and every credit-reference firm, and give them the exact information you have. Then let them deal with it.
Well, it’s my brother. I’m just torn. What if he goes to prison for a long time? What if his kid’s get taken away? What if… Then again, what if this child’s credit is so thoroughly destroyed that he can’t finish his education, or get a car or a home of his own, and it takes years and years to get straightened out and, in the meantime, he spirals into this horrible depression from which he’ll never recover, winding up living in the streets and… well, yeah. It’s just a sad spot I’m in right now.
Or maybe this couple will realize they have kids and now is about the right time to grow up. :rolleyes:
Otto, is there a reason your company never filed complaints with the police department?
I’m saying they already have. Imagine my surprise when my caller ID said a two year old was calling me.
In most cases, this would not work because people are not born with credit. You have to earn it. When I wanted a cell phone from At&t, they asked for a $800 deposit first because I had no credit (I was only 18 yrs. old). Using a child’s identity might work only in cases where the company checks for negative marks on a person’s credit history. In that case, a child’s history would work fine.
On another note, do you guys have a cite for the illegality of using your own child’s credit? I always thought the parent had a legal guardianship of most things financial and otherwise of their child. I’m not trying to start an argument; I am just wondering which law prohibits this.
This is precisely the problem which has put city owned PGW (Philadelphia Gas Works) on the brink of bankruptcy. They have $1.3M in unpaid bills, largely from people who wait until shutoff and reopen a new account under another name. They floated the idea of surcharging people whose bills are paid on time to cover deadbeats, but public outcry was horrendous. PGW has taken a hard line with the upcoming winter, refusing to turn on service for those with accounts in arrears, and the whining has already begun.
Except he used his kid’s name and SSN, but his own birthdate. The phone company doesn’t actually know they’ve granted phone service to a 2 year old’s credit, something I’m not entirely sure they’d be happy to do. Although you do raise an interesting point. I would hope they’d have a law to protect children from this type of thing, but it would be nice to have a cite.
If he is only now Two, and they screw up paying the bill the bad mark should be off his credit record in seven years which still wouldn’t matter to a Nine year old. Unless the phone Co. files a judgement, then I think it is Twenty years but if they get away with it this time they’ll only do it again and again
So you’re next on the list. He’s your brother. This means he knows your mother’s maiden surname, your address, phone number, possibly your SSN. Nip this thing in the bud. I was a credit fraud victim on the part of my very own brother several years ago.
Some kids already have credit. My own son, for example, has two savings accounts and a TAP account, all in his own name and SSN. These most certainly count as “good” marks on his credit.
As far as I’m aware, in most cases of parent-child identity theft/credit fraud, the thief is convinced that no harm will be done and that they will repay the money before the victim even notices. In almost all cases, repayment does not occur, since the thief still has the same money mismanagement issues.
When the victim comes of age, they usually discover the credit fraud when trying to rent a house, buy a car, etc. The victim then has a tough choice. The credit companies usually will not remove the debt from the victims credit, unless the victim takes action (i.e, files a police report against the thief). I’m sure you can imagine what a difficult position a very young adult would be in, having to choose between pressing charges against a parent, or having ruined credit until they pay it off themselves.
Please update us when you decide what to do. If your suspicions are correct, your nephew is the victim of theft. And your brother is the thief. I do not envy you the position you are in, however, I envy the nephew’s position even less.
Savings accounts do not show up on a credit report. For the most part, only loans show up. To get good credit you need to take out loans and pay them back.
Well… I can see the long term issue, but if this is a (real world) question of two hapless, financially irresponsible, people with toddlers trying to get by, I’d really have to question the wisdom of calling down the authorities (in one form or another) on them. The result is likely to be more negative for the children, than a potential credit problem 16 years hence. Sometimes we have to choose not between the bad and the good, but between the bad and the less bad.
Eventually their petty scams will catch up to them, but in the meantime phone access is needed by many people just for day to day survival. You should keep your nose way out of it unless you are prepared to take on full financial responsibility for his family. The potential damage to the child’s family, and their precarious financial situation via your (fully justified legally) interference in the near term is a lot higher risk to the child than long term credit issues.
It’s just a sad spot I’m in right now.