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SAN DIEGO — It is hard to imagine a toddler owning a new car, or having thousands of dollars in debt to his name.
But experts say it's happening all over the country, thanks to identity theft targeting children, one of the country's fastest growing crimes.
With one year left in high school, Nicole Garcia is excited about a career in the Navy and gaining some independence. Wanting to prepare her for the future, her father went to the bank to open Nicole's very first checking account. But something unexpected happened.
"He ran her number again and he said, ‘yeah someone is using her identity,' " Raymond Garcia said.
Someone had stolen Nicole's identity and opened up multiple accounts and credit cards in her name.
"When I found out I was devastated," Raymond Garcia said. "It's like, ‘wow how could that happen to my daughter?' You know I realized it could happen to anyone."
- Unsolicited credit offers
- Bills in your child's name
- A Social Security Administration account statement contains contribution information
- Your child has a credit report
Info: Fatherhood.about.com
Research by All Clear ID, a fraud protection website, found that identity theft of children under the age of five has actually jumped 105 percent nationally since last year. Children are being targeted 35 times more often than adults.
Experts say it can result in bad credit, bad background checks, defaulted loans and years of lost opportunities for the innocent victims.
"It can be costly, but mostly it's time, it's incredibly time-consuming; it can take years and years to clean it up," said Nikki Junker, who works with the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego.
Junker says that most of child ID theft cases go unreported, and that the victim and their family rarely discover who stole their identity and how it happened.
Experts say parents need to look for warning signs, like unusual mail addressed to their kids: credit card applications or auto insurance paperwork in the mail, or strange phone calls.
If you do suspect your child is a victim?
"You are going to have to contact the three different credit reporting agencies and prove that your child is who they say that they are," Junker said.
Nicole's father says after a lot of phone calls, emails and letters, he finally cleared his daughter's name and credit .
"I say it took me at least three months just to get this process going," Junker said.
Now only 17 years old, Nicole has learned to be very careful with her personal information.
"At first, I was like wow somebody wants to be me, I took it as a joke," Nicole said. "If my dad didn't get to it in time when I grow up I would be stuck."
If you're worried about child identity theft, check your child's credit record. The sooner you detect the problem, the better chance you have of fixing it.
