What Parent Would Steal From Their Own Child?

I am a member of LifeLock, as well as an employee, and this is a story of my personal experience with Identity Theft. Identity theft can occur in many different forms, one of which is the theft of a minor’s identity, which is exactly what happened to my two daughters. In our situation the perpetrator used my daughters’ information for defrauding the Department of Economic Security (DES) for financial gain.

I guess I should start with how I found out about the illegal use of my children’s information. Per the recommendation of LifeLock I requested work history reports from the Social Security Administration for both of my daughters. After six weeks I received a letter from DES stating that someone was claiming my girls as dependants and was collecting food stamps and other state assistance. You can imagine my shock, not only because of the fact I never applied nor received financial aid, but that they were holding me responsible for the income. Naturally, I came unglued and made an appointment with DES. Fortunately, they easily came to the conclusion that this was a fraudulent account and released me from responsibility. DES was great in assisting me with this issue, but their explanation for how this happened is quite disturbing.

I should probably step back a few years in order for you to understand how this happened to us and why. I adopted my girls when they were 10 and 12 years of age. Before that their biological parents had full access to their personal information, social security numbers and dates of birth, which of course, did not change after the adoption was final. Apparently, one of the biological parents sold my daughters’ personal information and claimed them as their own when applying for unemployment and state financial assistance. In our case, the perpetrator went as far as to find two children around the same age and brought them to DES when applying for the assistance.

Luckily everything worked out and DES corrected everything, but the experience was stressful. It’s amazing to think how long this could have continued if LifeLock hadn’t assisted in bringing it to my attention.