[quote=SK in CV]Thanks BG, that all makes sense. But how does putting a credit freeze on a minors SS number help any of this, other than eliminating stolen identity for a debt that would be unenforcable anyway? I’m not dismissing that as a valid reason to do it. That by itself would be a huge hassle. Is that something that is commonly done for adults? The credit freeze? I monitor my reports, to make sure there aren’t any new accounts that i didn’t apply for, but I don’t have a freeze on.[/quote]
When a person is trying to use a minor’s stolen SSN to obtain credit and the lender can’t get into the report because it is frozen, they will ask the imposter to “unfreeze” the account before credit is considered. Since the vast majority of credit reports are “frozen” due to one or more “fraud alerts” (because the acct-holder’s identity had been compromised in some way), the repository is not going to “unfreeze” it without the password of the actual acct holder. If the imposter doesn’t have that, they will have to go thru snail mail to unfreeze it (and may possibly have to be notarized). All I can say is they better be using the actual acct-holder’s address if they are going to attempt this.
In the short run, credit will not be granted in the minor’s name.
Unfortunately, if a lender runs a SSN, the only info they are likely to get is that that particular SSN was issued in a particular state. They will NOT know HOW LONG AGO the SSN was issued so will NOT realize that the SSN actually belongs to a minor.
For some states (incl CA), I know in my head which states certain SSN prefixes originate from and approx how long ago they were issued. But this knowledge comes from a l-o-o-o-ng practical experience working with SSNs on almost a daily basis. A lender, finance or CC company would really have no way of knowing this. Thus, I’m sure credit is (erroneously) extended to individuals using a minor’s SSN. In any case, this individual using the fraudulent identity to open credit has no intention of paying it back, anyway, whether or not the “loan terms” are enforceable.
