This article, entitled Credit Protection For Babies Is On The Rise comes from SingleMomFinancialHelp.com.

Adults know how important it is to protect their credit by paying their bills on time and guarding against identity theft that could quickly put them in debt and ruin their credit score. But how often does the single mom think that her infant may already have bad credit?

Thousands of cases of people using stolen identities of children have been identified across the country. These unfortunate circumstances have caused credit protection for babies to be on the rise. These kids are already in debt and their is credit ruined because someone has illegally been using their Social Security Number. In some cases, the numbers have been stolen even before the child is born. Most parents would never think of investigating their infant’s credit, so there is no real data on how many cases are actually out there.

When the thief has possession of your child’s Social Security number, they can use it to run up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt that will be attributed to your child. When a lender does a credit check on a loan applicant, many times they just use the credit history. As the child has nothing negative in the history, the loan or line of credit can be approved.

It’s easier than you would expect to steal the number of a young child. Social Security numbers can be predicted with the aid of computer software. The first three numbers of the SSN represent the state where the number is issued. The approximate date of birth of the child is represented by the last 6 numbers. Changes to the way the numbers are assigned will make them more random and harder to predict, but it won’t help the thousands of children whose numbers are already being used by others.

Find out if someone is using your child’s Social Security Number by taking the unusual step of checking the credit reports of everyone in your family. If you discover you or your children are victims of identity theft, it will be up to you to prove it. In the meantime, stop further damage by freezing you child’s credit. This will keep the debt from accumulating as you try to fix the problem.

Don’t count on the person responsible for the damage to your child’s credit to be caught and punished. The time and resources it takes for law enforcement to track down the identity thieves is too costly for the problem to be on the top of the priority list.

It’s not an easy process to prove theft and clear the credit history so don’t wait until the child is ready to apply for loans for college. Although credit protection for babies might seem unreal, each person can get up to 3 free credit reports each year, so it’s a financially painless and easy way to protect your child’s credit.

For more information please visit www.singlemomfinancialhelp.com/