Michelle Gurule is terrified to see her credit report.
She says there’s no telling what her mother has done to it.
“I’m in debt for thousands of dollars that I never knew about and had nothing to do with,” Gurule said. “I’ve never seen my credit score, and don’t want to. I’m too scared.”
All of it, she says, was the result of credit cards her mother had acquired by using Gurule’s Social Security number while she lived at home. In all, Gurule has been able to identify five cards taken in her name, but she’s not sure if there are more.
At 21, Gurule believes she’s among a frightening number of young adults whose credit was trashed by parents who used their children’s identity to acquire credit, loans or services.
As a result, Gurule can’t get a credit card, she says. She could be rejected for a job. She’s unable to rent an apartment without a co-signer or an extra month’s security deposit. Forget about a car loan.
“It’s a nightmare,” she said.
Every so often, a new bill comes in the mail for a credit card she’s never heard of, or a letter demanding payment arrives from a creditor she never knew she had, she says. Gurule has even been summoned to court once to answer for an unpaid tab that bore her name and Social Security number.
“Now if I try to open an account, I hear about unpaid mortgages and car loans,” she said. “I have no idea what they are.”
Desperate measures
In the wake of an economic collapse that has toppled banks, daunted credit-card issuers and nudged a record number of Americans to the edge of financial disaster, it may seem the only ones with pristine credit are those who haven’t even used it yet.
Until their parents get hold of it. And it’s especially easy to do. Parents are in the unique position to have complete access to their children’s personal information — even grown children — to acquire as much credit as they’d like.
No hard numbers exist for the breadth of this unusual form of identity theft, yet its existence is more prevalent than some expect. And some experts say its numbers are increasing.
A Federal Trade Commission report from 2007 found that 6 percent of all identity-theft victims said that the thief was a family member or relative.
Nationally, the number of people under 19 years old who reported being victims of identity theft hovers around 20,000 yearly, according to the FTC, although experts say it’s probably much higher — perhaps by 10 or 20 times.
The problem typically isn’t uncovered until the child begins to apply for his or her own credit, usually in the form of a student loan, a first credit card or an auto loan.
That’s when they learn their credit score is in the Dumpster and has been for years, leaving them with a critical choice in getting it back on track: prosecute their parents or stomach the heartache and accompanying financial difficulties.
“There are those hit hard by the recession whose own credit is terrible, and in desperate times come desperate measures,” said Linda Foley, founder of the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego. “To keep the heat on, the air or electricity, the water going, and they can’t get the credit, they use their child’s Social Security number and the issue is solved.”
Though many parents who resort to using their child’s identity for credit might intend to pay it back once they’re over the fiscal crisis, most can’t and the cycle of deficit spending spirals out of control.
“The ugly truth is, the parents say they had to get food or pay the bills, to keep their costs down, that things just got out of hand,” Foley said. “Then their child who wants to go to college can’t. They don’t have the credit to get the loan.”
A dream sabotaged
That’s what happened to Gurule, she says, though in her case it was a desire to obtain certification as a nursing assistant. The 11-day course at the Emily Griffith Opportunity School in Denver would cost her about $1,000. She hoped to get a loan.
She has been rejected. Three times. The reason: her awful credit score.
“I’m never going to college,” Gurule said. “They say I’m too much in debt and never paid the bills. This whole thing just squished everything.”
Each time she has applied, she has told the lender how her credit score got that way. Each time, she says, she has been told that her option is to press charges. That’s not so easy a task as it seems.
Experts say a person whose parent steals his or her identity often won’t even file a police report — an essential element for credit-reporting bureaus to erase fraudulent accounts — in part because of the guilt that comes with such abuse.
“I really was going to do it, but then it’s one of those things where you have to ask whether you’d betray your own mother,” Gurule said. “I chose to stick it out.”
Gurule’s mother has a history of criminal identity theft, mostly for using stolen credit cards, court records show. None of the cases involved her daughter. She would not speak to The Denver Post and is currently serving a sentence in community corrections in Boulder on felony ID-theft-related charges, records show.
“It’s not as if it’s well-reported,” Denver Deputy District Attorney Joe Morales said of parental identity theft. “Sometimes the child believes they’re helping their parents, so it’s easy to get pulled into it, to allow it. How much do the kids really understand the long- term consequences? Trying to repair your identity is very, very difficult and can take years.”
Ravaging Junior’s rep
The victims easiest to prey on, Morales said, are children who share the same name as a parent, such as a junior. That happened in one Denver case where a father obtained student loans in the name of his son.
Vincent Tubbs is serving a three-year prison term, records show, for having used his son’s Social Security number to get a job and thousands of dollars in federally guaranteed student loans. The reason: Tubbs had several other loans in default and couldn’t qualify, court records show.
The boy, whose mother later legally changed his middle name, was only 14 years old and his credit history was already trashed.
“A parent is simply able to hide it well, keeping the bills away from the kids,” said Morales, whose own parents had asked him as a teenager to help them through a difficult time by using his credit history to obtain a credit card.
“That worked out OK,” Morales said, noting his parents were medical professionals.
But not all such instances do. Andrew Ward is a 24-year-old Denver resident who says he struggles to pay off the debts of his stepfather — all of them taken out in his name.
“I don’t even know what it did to my credit score, but I’m still trying to dig out of the hole,” he said. “I’d press charges if I could, but the creditors said I’m liable and it was too long ago.”
He has been able to get a car loan, but the interest rate was nearly unaffordable, Ward said.
“It’s just unfortunate when parents mess up their kids’ credit history,” he said, noting he’s awaiting the arrival of his first child. “I’m just trying to get going, and already I have strikes on me. I’d like to get a house, but I doubt it now. It’s not right.”
David Migoya: 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com
Protect yourself
The impact of identity theft can be especially profound when the victim is the child of the offender. Parental identity theft is on the rise, experts say, largely because of the tough economy. Here are a few ways to tell whether you or your child is a victim and what to do.
• Be suspicious if numerous preapproved offers arrive in the mail; investigate unexpected statements or bills.
• Call the credit-card company and ask for a copy of the original application.
• Dispute the debt. Credit reporting agencies are obligated to verify the dispute with a creditor.
• Ask for a credit report — you’re entitled to a free one each year from each reporting bureau — no matter the child’s age. Go to www.annualcreditreport.com.
• Tell collectors the debt is not yours and to cease collection activities. They are legally required to do so.
• Report the matter to police. Most credit bureaus won’t accept it as identity theft without this.
• Seek counseling. Many children feel betrayed by those they trusted.
