Your Money: You Should Freeze Your Child’s Credit. It’s Not Hard. Here’s How.

What’s a credit freeze?

When you have a credit freeze with the major bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — most companies can’t look at your credit record unless they are already doing business with you. This has the effect of icing out a thief who’s trying to get a credit card in your name, since the card company won’t open the account unless it can check your credit first.

Do I really need to do this for any offspring as well?

It’s a good idea. Thieves can find a way to use your children’s credit files for their own nefarious purposes, just as they can with yours. Most people aren’t in the habit of monitoring their children’s credit, which gives thieves more time to do their work. Plus, kids tend not to have black marks in their credit files yet — another enticing feature for thieves.

Many adults don’t like the inconvenience of having to temporarily thaw their credit files whenever they want to get a car loan or take advantage of a sign-up bonus for a new card. But this isn’t a factor for children, making their freezes less onerous.

Children Credit Freeze Pages

• Equifax

• Experian

• TransUnion

So what do I do to set up a freeze for a child?

Each of the credit bureaus has instructions on its website. Generally, the law requires companies to collect proof that you are who you say you are and that your child is really your child. This usually means mailing them copies of some combination of your child’s birth certificate and Social Security card, and your driver’s license and Social Security card.

If all goes well, a couple of weeks later you’ll get a note back confirming that the companies have frozen the files.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/your-money/credit-freeze-children.html?partner=rss&emc=rss