The phone rings as your toddler plays with his toys on the floor. You pick up the phone as usual, only this isn’t a friendly call--it’s a credit card company demanding payment for thousands of dollars.
At first you think that your account has been hacked. Then the collector says that the bill is for your toddler, blissfully unaware of the serious financial and legal consequences ahead for you.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon recently conducted the most extensive study on child identity theft to date and found that the rate among children in the report who had their Social Security Number used by someone else (10.2%) was 51 times higher than the adult identity theft rate (0.2%).*
Child identity theft is a severe problem for a number of reasons. A child’s age can allow fraud to go unreported for years, even decades. By the time it’s discovered, the damage to their credit history may be difficult to legally dispute or irreparable altogether.
Medicare scams come in many forms. A very common scam offers "free" medical equipment or services but you have to provide your Medicare number. The most recent scam of this type targets people with diabetes. Callers are claiming to be from Medicare and are offering free testing supplies. That's a red flag as Medicare never makes calls offering supplies or services.
“We’ll pay off your loan no matter how much you owe.”
As of March 1, 2012 Google's new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service have taken effect. The updated policy replaces the separate privacy policies for all of their services except Google Books, Google Wallet, and Google Chrome. If you use Google Services such as Gmail, Google+, YouTube, Picasa, Docs, and Calendar, you have a Google Account and are affected. If you only use Google Search, you are not affected.
