FTC's Ohlhausen Offers ID Theft Prevention Tips, Resources in Twitter Chat With VA
Acting FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen provided general information, tips and resources to help consumers prevent identity theft of their children's, medical and tax data, during a Wednesday Twitter chat with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Ohlhausen said unpaid medical debts…
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could damage a person's credit or ruin credit "so your child may be denied credit and/or loans for school, car, or a job." She said people should check with credit agencies if they're an ID theft victim, including requesting a manual search of their children's Social Security numbers. "Kids don’t have credit reports -- unless someone is using their info for fraud," she tweeted. Ohlhausen said people should beware of Internal Revenue Service scammers claiming people owe taxes and threaten lawsuit, arrest or deportation as well as phishing emails seeking employee information from organizations. She said people should keep tax records forever and shred other records after seven years to prevent tax ID theft. When filing taxes, people should file early and use a secure connection, not public Wi-Fi, she added. The chat used hashtags #ChildIDTheft, #MedIDTheft, #TaxIDTheft and #VeteranIDTheftChat.