Canadian Personal Finance Blog

So there was another story on the news about a mother who had applied for a Social Insurance Number for her daughter (who was 8 at the time), then used that number to get a Credit Card in her daughter’s name. The mother then ran up $150K worth of debt on the card and presumably defaulted on this debt. The daughter never learned about this until she tried to buy a car, and the finance company refused her, because of this bad debt.

Now this is a weird and extreme story (whether it is true, is to be wondered as well), but it does show the power of how one slip or theft can cause damage to your Financial Debt Profile that could take years to clean up. Other people living off your good name is a real crime folks (not just something silly the Citibank created for their ads).

1. Watch your bank accounts and credit cards for unknown charges, and challenge anything you can’t explain.
2. Get a credit history from one of the regular sources and see if any unknown credit cards have been taken in your name. Better still find OLD credit cards that might be active and CANCEL them right away. I found out I had 4 other credit cards that were never cancelled, even though I thought I had done it, so it is important to choke off these possible areas for Fraud.

This will help you build a strong Credit Profile and not leave you holding other people’s debts, as well.

–C8j