I cannot express enough how important it is to protect yourself right now. When I say protect, I mean to literally make sure YOU exist! What does that mean? It means that if someone comes along and steals your identity, you could lose everything. If you have children, they can have their identities stolen before they are even old enough to have credit. Seem unlikely? Well, I can tell you from absolute certainty that my child’s social security number was used before he was even born. It absolutely SHOULD NOT be possible, and yet, it happened. So, let’s go over some possible scenarios of things that could easily happen and why they happen as well as a way to get help!

Social Security Protection

There really is no such thing as protecting your social security number. We have to use it for so many things and to be honest, we have to rely on people and technology to do jobs that they just can’t or won’t get done! Why are there so many companies that have “breaches”? It’s not just because someone is TRYING to get that information. It’s because people that are supposed to make sure those protections are in place are not doing their jobs. I mean, why are multi-billion-dollar companies have major breaches? Whatever the reason is, it’s happening, and we need to be prepared.

Data Breaches

We know that companies over the years have had data breaches. At&t was a recent company in 2024 that had a major breach and millions of people had their information stolen. Over the years, we’ve seen places such as Target (2013) lose credit card numbers as well as 23andMe (2023) lose GENETIC information. It seems like social security numbers are just one of the things we need to keep an eye on! The number of data breaches each year is astounding. Thousands of companies that have promised to keep your information safe have not kept up to that promise. It seems like it’s commonplace for our data to be out there nowadays, but it really shouldn’t be this way!

Identity Thieves

Identity thieves have various levels of theft that they can participate in, and social security numbers are kind of the worst. The most common theft is probably credit card numbers and debit card numbers. In rare cases it might be a bank account number, but most people use a card of some kind. I have had my debit card number stolen before, and it’s not fun. You think it might be as simple as just telling your bank that someone stole the card number. Well, it’s not that easy! Depending on the type of theft, you will need to file a police report (usually in the area that the card is being used, so that sucks) and then give them a bunch of information that you may not even know. How are you supposed to know where your card was stolen? In one case, I had never even activated my debit card and had never used it. I had it sitting on a shelf on the 2nd story of my house. The bank tried to blame me for someone stealing my card even after I explained to them that it was on my shelf and had never been used! So, be prepared for a fight with many of the banks.

If you’re social security number gets compromised, though, you can be in a lot more trouble than just a fight with a bank. Social security numbers are used for more than just opening a line of credit through PayPal or getting a high line on a credit card. We use them to apply for houses, car loans, student loans, filing taxes, applying for jobs, starting a business, etc. If someone else gets ahold of your social security number, they can get access to everything that you use that number for and more.

Social security numbers can be stolen from all of those ways that we use them, which is horrible, but there is another way that thieves have found to access social security numbers. It’s one of the dumbest ways possible, and yet it works. They GUESS. This is how a social security number can be established before it is even technically assigned to someone. With my child’s social security number, the person went down somewhere and use a random set of numbers to do something small. It wasn’t something that would trigger a credit check, but it was an ability to see if the number would work. Even though it hadn’t been assigned to anyone, it DID work because it was used in a way that there would be no flag on it. Now, they knew it didn’t have a credit account yet and they sat on it until they tested it again. This time, it was assigned to someone. Now, they were able to get more information and attach that social security number to a fake name. The use of it this time, though, sent me a warning because I was monitoring the number. I’ll go over this in a bit, but there are some ways to help prevent disaster when your child turns 18.

So, at this point, nothing has been accomplished with that social security number except that they have gotten information and connected it to a fake name. It doesn’t seem so bad, right? I know you’re expecting this… but… WRONG! They are going to continue to sit on that social security number along with all of the other numbers that they have acquired until a certain time in which they will then try again. They WILL find a way to use that number and they WILL get some kind of money. Too many companies do not have protections in place to prevent fraud. However, if you have protections in place to help you manage when it happens, then it might not ruin your life.

What Thieves Can Do with Your Social Security Number

We all know that thieves can use your social security number for getting money. They have essentially stolen a part of your identity to get that money. However, there is more to your identity than just money or possessions. If they are able to get an ID with your social security number, then they can literally pretend to be you. That means when they rack up 35 unpaid parking tickets on a car that they used with your identity, guess who gets arrested? Well, it’s going to be whichever person they can find first. You can bet that when you visit the city that has the warrant out for your arrest, they will be finding you first. After all, the thief that stole your identity will most likely have moved on to another identity to ruin by then.

In reality, even if you DO get arrested, a good lawyer can help you out of your situation. The picture on the ID should match the thief, but there is a chance it looks a lot like you! The sad part is that this type of thing can happen without you ever knowing about it because the chain of events that led to those unpaid parking tickets wasn’t monitored. If the people pay cash for a car and your credit is never hit with anything, there is a good chance that you may not know that your identity was even stolen. Plus, these thieves usually work with other horrible people that are more than willing to use a stolen ID or credit card because so many people just don’t pay attention and they will still get a large majority of what is run through those businesses.

I’ve focused mostly on the personal side of identity theft, but if you’re a business owner, then you should be even more worried about what can happen when your identity is stolen. I met a man last year that had his entire business ruined because his identity was stolen. They were able to gain control of all of his accounts and even push him out of his business. In the end, $175,000 to a lawyer, and he was able to get his business back, but it wasn’t even worth a penny. He had so much debt, customers were angry and had left, and all of the systems he had in place were destroyed. The debt wasn’t that bad for him to deal with, but rebuilding trust with customers was a nightmare. The last time I spoke with him, he was in talks with another company to buy him out. He had rebuilt some of the company back, but he felt that it was too much damage to come back from fully.

One final horror story before I get into protections. Elderly people are actually more vulnerable than younger generations. There are many reasons for this, but one of the biggest is the fact that they just don’t know technology as well as younger people and they fall for scams easier. We had an elderly couple in my family that wired money to get a grandkid out of trouble only to find out that the grandkid wasn’t even in the state they sent the money. The scammers actually called them with legitimate information (easily found online now) and said their grandchild was in jail and needed bail money. (For the record, it was NOT me.) The elderly couple went to the nearest place to wire money and sent it as fast as they could. After hours of not hearing anything, they finally started making phone calls to other family members only to find out they had been scammed. Luckily for them, the scammers couldn’t provide the right ID and were never able to get the money. The money was returned to the elderly couple, but it was a BIG scam at the time and so easy for them to accomplish with a simple online search. Elderly people often have trusts for family members or accounts that they are planning on passing on, but those can be completely stolen if their identities are stolen!

We haven’t even gotten into the dangers of using online technology and how any age can fall victim to phishing scams or accidentally clicking on something that leads to data theft. Gaming, shopping, researching, or anything else that can be done online can lead to stolen data. So, let’s not have a panic attack and instead figure out ways to be safe.

Put Protections in Place

This is super sad to say, but you need to have some protections in place in some way. Credit card companies are constantly offering their customers options for protecting their cards. Even Norton has acquired LifeLock to provide an option for customers to purchase protection for themselves and family members. It’s become a necessity for so many people now. There are some free ways to help protect yourself as well as paid ways.

Free Protections

Trust me when I say that paying for protection is not always an option for people. I did not feel it was necessary to protect myself or family until my child’s social security number was flagged. In fact, I didn’t think it was necessary for my child to have protections in place until I signed up for it and found out it was an issue! I could rant for literally hours about how horrible it is that a child’s social security number can be used under the age of 18, but it will not change a thing! (My own social security number was used to purchase a house in New York for over 2 million dollars when I was 6 years old. There was no debt associated with the use of it, but it is STILL on my credit report today even though I’ve disputed it for many, many years.)

There are limited free options for protecting yourself, but they are not going to be as good as paid options. However, I strongly believe that SOMETHING is better than nothing! So, one of your best options is going to be to get your free credit report from the different credit agencies every year. You might be able to get a free report through a random place, but your best bet is going to be to use the one the government used to advertise all the time on television. Do you remember those commercials? I really thought it was a paid company and had no idea it was associated with the government, but I’ve used them, and it seems to be legitimate. It is called AnnualCreditReport.com and they really are required to give you a free report annually.

The absolute biggest problem that I have with these free options is that you are having to deal with the credit companies directly. They are HORRIBLE to deal with. I had to contact them in regard to my child’s social security number being used. I had to provide proof that I was the mother and had the right to send in any information and you know what they did? They gave me an address that they no longer monitored. I spent so much money trying to provide them with information to demand that my child’s credit not be available until the age of 18. I did this because THEY told me I had to do it but guess how they responded. You’ll never guess. Actually, you probably will. They responded that they could not do anything because the child was not 18 and a credit account could not be opened for them. That’s so weird since I was notified that someone was trying to use the account to access credit!

Dealing with the credit agencies (which at least one has been breached by the way – Equifax in 2017 that we know about), is literally worse than going to the dentist for anything. It might literally be one of the absolute worst experiences in my life. So, I chose to use a paid option for protecting my family and I found a way to pay for it because it was that important to me.

Paid Options for Protection

There are many paid options out there that you can use. I would give you a list, but I have tried several and do not like them. I will link over to the one that I use and highly suggest, but not everyone will want to use it. Your unique situation really requires you to do a little research on options, but I will give you some tips in just a minute on what you need to look out for so you can make sure you are protected. The service I use (and promote) is called IDShield through LegalShield. If you are interested in this service, though, definitely visit my website for it so if you need help then I can help you personally! Visit https://cmeason.wearelegalshield.com/ for information on both IDShield and LegalShield (which is legal advice for anything, not just identity theft). If you end up wanting to get it but get it any other way than through my website, I will not be able to help you because it’s set up so that however you sign up is how you get your help. (So, if you sign up elsewhere and need help with your account or contacting anyone, I won’t be able to help unless you sign up under my link!)

If you have no interest in IDShield or LegalShield (trust me when I say in some states, I understand this, but the Nevada group is AWESOME), then you can check through your credit card companies or you can try LifeLock or any company you think is legitimate. Do your research and ask questions. You WILL be providing your social security number for this service. You do not want to give it to a company that is not legitimate! I had signed up for a service through one of my credit cards. They promised my entire family was being protected. It wasn’t until I switched to the LegalShield services that I realized that I had been lied to by my credit card company! The ONLY service they were providing was monitoring the credit card with that account. The “family protection” was IF they were an authorized user! That credit card company has been fined, and they had to give money to anyone that was signed up for that service, but it charged $10 a month and most of us paid for years thinking we were protected. The company settled and paid back a total of $10 per person that was involved. It’s ridiculous.

How to Make Sure You are Protected

If you are an individual, you will have less to worry about. However, if you are signing up for a service for your entire family, then there is a lot more to it and each of the things I mention will apply to ALL of the people you have signed up. That also means children!

In a typical service, you will be asked to provide your social security number as well as the accounts that you want to have monitored. You can choose to provide all of the accounts or just ones that you are worried about. To be fully protected, you will want to have all of your accounts on there, but I have some personal exceptions to that rule. I am in my bank account weekly if not daily. If there is some kind of fraud that is occurring with my bank account, I’m going to know faster than the credit service. In fact, you should have notifications set up from banks and credit cards anyway. The main reason to connect the accounts to your monitoring service is because if something happens that you need help with, then the service should be able to help you with that fraud.

If you are setting up the account and you put in your social security number and then say you have a spouse, the service should ask you for their social security number as well. This should also apply to children! It should be a huge red flag if the company does not ask you for any other social security number but yours and then says that your family is protected! They cannot magically get access to everyone in your family no matter what they say. I know it seems like it’s easy to get information about anyone these days, but even if they could get that information, it’s not legal. YOU need to input that information. Yes, it takes time and yes, it is frustrating.

If they do not prompt you to get your free credit reports when signing up, then make sure you get them yourself. This will help you identify the accounts to set up monitoring for as well as to see if there are any issues when you are first getting started. If you find a problem on your account, the service you sign up for should be able to help you with anything from BEFORE that sign-up date. If they are not willing to help you at all because you were not being monitored, then it’s not the right service for you. At the absolute MINIMUM, they should be able to tell you how to handle an issue. IDShield not only helped me with getting the information to try to make sure my child was protected, but they also gave me the letters to fill out with the information at that time that was needed for the request. Dealing with children’s problems is kind of a nightmare and cannot be done by a company. A parent has to do that themselves. Getting that information from the credit agencies is kind of like pulling teeth, though, so I definitely needed the help.

To sum that up so you can have a little checklist, these are the things to make sure you are getting:

• Make sure they ask for your social security number as well as other members
• Protection for ALL accounts that you want
• Annual Credit Report if available for free (they use the same website you have access to)
• Help with any issues that come up from before being set up (this means at least a walkthrough of the processes needed to get the issue resolved.

I don’t think there is any one good solution for everyone. I DO feel, though, that the IDShield/LegalShield option that I use is really good from what I have experienced. So, it’s at least a good spot to start researching!