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Imagine arriving home from work one night only to find notices from collection agencies and different banks. They demand you to pay past due debts that you never made. It’s a really frustrating scenario, but what if this also happens to every members of your family, including your children? It may sound impossible, but id thieves can cause these severe troubles. It’s now becoming common to us that identity theft is one of the fastest-rising crimes.

But do you know that the fastest-growing type of id theft is child identity theft? If thieves aren’t busy stealing valuables or tricking potential online victims, they might be devising new ways to successfully take over a child’s identity. Children are easy targets because of their neat credit. Also, child id theft is hard to detect, because some parents don’t usually check their children’s credit information. It’s therefore important to uphold credit protection of all family members. Here are some important tips to consider about safeguarding family credit.

The danger is for everyone

It’s not safe to assume that privacy protection against id theft and fraud is for “adults only.” As a whole family, always consider the danger as a serious threat that can plague each of its members. Aside from the rise in credit card fraud that hits the adult population, child identity theft is also a growing problem. Keep in mind that the danger affects the children because of their good records, high vulnerability and low detection rates. When child id theft happens, the crime can go undetected for years unless parents start checking the records of their children at an early age.

Start taking action through regular credit check-ups

As soon as the problem is recognized and that every family member can fall victim, it’s now time for you to take the right course of action. Start off by regularly checking all the credit reports of the family. While it is always a primary prevention to order free credit reports from the credit reporting companies once every four months (by law, credit reporting companies can give free reports upon request), the gap between the allowable months before the next credit monitoring can leave numerous rooms for damage. The longer the theft remains undetected - say 2 to 3 months - the bigger the damage is to the victims. Luckily, serious consumers that need additional protection to their welfare can resort to credit monitoring services. As long as they can afford the payment, they can get the monitoring service that they need. These services can scrutinize credit reports and provide alerts to consumers about any changes in their reports. This is very essential - the small amount they have to pay can provide family credit protection that helps minimize the chances of getting defrauded.

Things to consider before buying credit monitoring service

Always make sure that the monitoring service checks all your credit reports from the three reporting companies. There are some companies that only check one credit file and this may still leave some loopholes on your other reports. Finally, check if they also monitor your children’s credit, which is an important component of family credit protection.

Do some homework about increasing privacy and protecting sensitive information

You can always search the web and read some useful, self-help tips about guarding credit. Take some time to study and apply this to your everyday activities. These include keeping documents with personal information safe and locked up, limiting the amount of information you share to others, checking all monthly statements to prevent credit card fraud, educating children about safe online practices and shredding old documents and credit card receipts. By spreading this information to all family members, you can have increased protection against theft and fraud.

Kedy is an active blogger who is fond of sharing interesting finance related articles to encourage people to manage and protect their finances. She also covers topics on replacing lost social security card and deal with lost ss card to protect you and your family from credit scams and id theft.