Family opened credit cards in my name when I was a minor
Identity theft by family members during childhood results in maxed-out debt discovered years later when trying to secure adult loans or checking credit scores. This hidden debt damages adult financial standing before the victim even enters the workforce, leaving them to untangle fraudulent accounts opened while they were children.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
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- 1freezing credit with the major bureausDid this help you?
- 2disputing the accounts directly with credit bureaus and lendersDid this help you?
- 3filing identity theft reports and police reports against family membersDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“turns out she has a 7k maxed credit card from 2014 (she would have been 8 years old) that hasn’t been touched.”source ↗
“Lots of terrible advice in the comments. This happened to me, I was 10 and my mom opened credit cards in my name.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 5Bank refuses to close fraudulent business account opened with my EIN
- 3How to stop fake orders on cheap digital products
- 2How to handle a loan taken out in your name without permission
- 4Buyer falsely claims item is fake to force a return
- 11How do I dispute a bunch of incorrect charges at once?
- 3How to prove business partners are stealing money without tipping them off