Heroes in Business - Experian Identity Report with Rod Griffin, Safeguarding Your Child Identity

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Experian Identity Report with Rod Griffin, Safeguarding Your Child Identity. Rod Griffin is the Senior Director of Public Education for Experian. He is interviewed by David Cogan Host of the Heroes Show discussing how families can better protect against fraud and identity theft.  

Up in the sky, look, it's captivating, it's energizing, it's Eliance's Heroes. Eliance's is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities and startups, where our heroes in business align. Now here's your host flying in, David Kogan, founder of Eliance's. That's right. And I'm back. It's our weekly Experian Identity Report. And welcome back to the show, Rod Griffin. Rod leads Experian's national consumer education programs and works with consumer advocates and financial educators to help consumers increase their ability to understand and manage their personal finances and protect

themselves from fraud and identity theft. So, okay, Rod, I think this topic, I know this topic is going to be extremely valuable to parents. Hence, I'm a parent who are listening today because we're going to discuss safeguarding your child's identity, a very critical point that people need to understand. So I didn't even realize that kids' identities are an attractive target for thieves. Is this true? It is. And I have seven grandchildren. So I'm right there with you. You think about it a lot. Sadly, yes. Children are a target of identity thieves, primarily because they're a blank slate. And so their names and identities are a great resource for identity thieves and fraudsters. And that's what we need to try to protect.

The unfortunate reality is that quite often it's family members or friends or acquaintances that are stealing the children's identity, which makes it a really difficult issue to contend with. Right, right. How would, though, you even know even know though if your child has been a victim of identity theft? Yeah, and it can be difficult. And you know, the whole goal is to use someone who's not going to be very visible. So for parents, there are several things you can do. One, you can ask for your children's credit reports for free once a year. If you go to experian.com slash fraud and you'll find a minor credit report request form, click on that button, fill it in.

We'll ask you for some identifying information, first for the child, because we need to know who the child is. And then for you, we need to verify that you are a parent or legal guardian, that you have a right to that individual's, the child's credit history, and that you're not the fraudster. And so we want to make sure we're protecting the child. It's not because we want to make it difficult. We want to make sure that

we're protecting the child because you're telling us you're concerned that your child may be a victim. And if we have a credit report on file, we'll send it to you. If we don't, we'll simply tell you we have no record on file. That's a good thing. So that's step one. Know what's there. There are other tools that are available. Experian offers a family fraud monitoring service, for example, and you can find it at Experian.com. Visit our monitoring services and you can monitor up to 10 children's credit reports. And so for like my dad was the baby of 10, so his mom and dad could have monitored every one of their children's credit histories and made sure that if there's anything there, they can respond to it. And we will help do that.

Another step you can take is if you have a child and there is a credit history on file, you can have it frozen. So we will freeze that credit file so that no one can really access it using their stolen identity until that freeze is lifted so you can help protect your child. So several steps you can take. Again, very important information that you're sharing. Very interesting. And again, you're watching, listening to me, David Kogan, host of the Alliances Hero Show. Make sure you go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com.

You can go ahead and click on the radio and that'll take you to the links for past interviews, including past interviews with Rod Griffin, who's here today, who's experienced National Consumer Education Program, and he leads that program. So I guess the thing is, is Rod, what should we do though, if this happens to our child? Yeah. If you know that your child is a victim of identity theft, notify the credit reporting companies clearly. So you can go again to experian.com fraud and notify us that your child is a victim we will verify if a credit file is present and we will then help you freeze that file we can add fraud alerts to that file and so that you are then able to be confident that it's not being exposed. Another thing to know about Experian and the way we manage minor information, information for minors, is that one, we don't knowingly collect information

for children. So you shouldn't have a credit report, but it's possible to, some parents will add their minor child as an authorized user, for example. So you may. If we have a minor credit or a credit report for a minor, we will not disclose that report for anyone under the age of 13. So even if there's a credit file on record, if someone requests it and we can see that it belongs to a minor, we will tell them, sorry, we're not giving this to you. So that's the first step in working behind the scenes. From there as a parent, again, look at those monitoring services, make sure that you're checking that report, dispute any information that you believe is

fraudulent. We can add a statement of dispute to your report. And we can add a fraud statement to the child's report as well to make sure that anytime that information is used, the lender will be notified so that they can stop that process. And you also had mentioned too, even that, you know, sometimes it's someone that we know, friends or it could be, you know, relatives and stuff. Is there anything that we can do to prevent this though from happening again? Yeah, you know, there are steps we need to take as parents and grandparents. One, some common sense things. So first, if you are carrying your child's social security card or identifying information because you're enrolling

them in school or need that information, make sure you take that out of your purse or your wallet or your car, put it in a safe place. Don't carry it with you. That's kind of the first source of information about children. Children are also victimized online. About 1.3 million children are victimized every year, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center, which is a good partner with Experian. And it's done through social media. So kids tend to overshare online and will give information that can be used by identity thieves. There are children's gaming sites that look very safe and geared toward young children that are full of fraudsters and viruses and malware to capture that information. So monitor your children's online activity. Make sure that they're on reliable, safe sites and that you know exactly

what they're sharing. So help them understand what they should and should not share when they're on social media. Really crucial as well. So teaching your children is as important as teaching yourself about what to do. And again, we have the Experian Identity Report that we're doing today. And Rod, talk to us about the various Experian products that they have to also help prevent this in detail. So we go to Experian.com. That's E-X-P-E-R-I-A-N.com. What do we do from there to help prevent? Sure. So we have a family monitoring service.

So you can go to Xprime.com and find that monitoring service. You can sign up yourself. So monitor your own credit history. Make sure that you know what's happening with your own history as the adult. You can add your children to that report as well after that monitoring service so that we're monitoring the dark web we're monitoring social media sites we're monitoring credit histories to make sure that if your child's identity is stolen and used we can alert you right away and that is

key to preventing use of that identity for crimes against financial crimes in particular. So make sure you're using those tools. They're free. We also have premium services. So take advantage of the technology that's available to you today. And again, go to Experian.com and use those monitoring services. Go to Experian.com and use those monitoring services. Go to Experian.com slash fraud. You can request your children's credit reports really about being diligent and proactive. Fantastic information.

Any other additional advice that you can provide to our audience about how to manage this situation? Because the first part would be panic when you hear this. Yeah, panic and then anger and then fear. I've kind of been through those stages myself. So don't panic. Again, request the child's credit report. If you know that your child's been a victim, kind of the same process, notify local law enforcement, file a police report because they will be able

to help you then investigate the situation. And if you have that police report because they will be able to help you then investigate the situation. And if you have that police report, you can come to experience with it. We can begin to suppress fraudulent information, dispute the fraudulent information that's appearing in the child's credit report and help them restore that history and then protect it for the long term. So really a crucial step to take as well. Great. Well, we really appreciate it again, your time here today, Rod, and being on the Experian Identity Report. Thank you again to Rod Griffin, who leads Experian's National Consumer Education Program. You can go to Experian.com, E-X-P-E-R-I-A-N to learn more and to see the various products

and services that they offer regarding what we spoke about today. Thank you again. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show. Make sure that you go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. Thank you again, Rod Griffin. Thank you, David. Take care.