<p>I would suggest putting a freeze on your husband’s credit . Not sure about the children, but you may be able to freeze their social security numbers as well. You will need to contact all 3 credit agencies and the cost is $10 each but may be waived with an attempted fraud.
I am a firm believer in freezing your credit if you suspect social security information has been leaked. It is very easy to unfreeze for a period of time if you ever apply for new credit. Each agency gives you a PIN and it takes a simple call to an automated line for all 3 agencies. The cost is $10 each and the fee can be paid by credit card when you call to unfreeze. I have done this without issue when refinancing.
A credit freeze will make it virtually impossible for a thief to apply for any type of credit with your social security number.</p>
<p>The 3 agencies are:</p>
<p>Equifax Security Freeze
PO Box 105788
Altanta, GA 30348
1-888-298-0045</p>
<p>TransUnion
PO Box 6790
Fullerton, CA 92834-9416
1-888-909-8872</p>
<p>Experian
NCAC
PO Box 9554
Allen, TX 75013
1-888-397-3742</p>
<p>How stressful - ugh - sorry for you guys and hope it ends up being fine. I have had to deal with this to a much milder degree and it was such a pain, but the good guys tend to win!</p>
<p>This is a very stressful, bizarre situation. My sympathies.</p>
<p>From what you’ve said, I would hold steady, as others have said. It’s always wise to have a few financial safeties anyway, so adding a few schools sounds prudent.</p>
<p>In most cases community colleges have registrations very close to start dates, so should a true emergency arise, you would probably have the option.</p>
<p>I’m not an expert in this area by any means and have only suffered minor cases (several) of identity theft.</p>
<p>I can only imagine the anxiety you are going through.</p>
<p>Try to believe this will resolve well. From what you’ve told us, it sounds as if they will. I certainly hope they well.</p>
<p>This is stressful, but I am not sure how it affects your finances for college. The only thing I can honestly think is that you may need to pay some legal fees if the scammer has succeeded in acquiring funds somehow in your H’s name/SSN. But ultimately I do not think you are going to lose your house, savings, etc.</p>
<p>Just want to reiterate this advice - do <em>not</em> rely on the thief’s good nature to stop with this single attempt - you’ll want to run a credit report and see if there have been any recent credit checks - each may represent a different credit card they’ve opened.</p>
<p>Because they have enough info to open credit cards in your husband’s/kid’s names, freeze your credit files (each allows you to do it on-line), but you have to do all three agencies - which is a shame. You can get the fee waived if you have a police report - but that takes longer - if it were me, I’d do it on-line, right now, and spend the $30/per SSN. Also, record a fraud report with one of the agencies. </p>
<p>The good news here is that you seem to have caught it in time, before they could do any serious damage. Not that you can “relax” - you still have a lot to do to protect yourself. But at least you’re warned.</p>
<p>You should also consider the source of the breach - and what other info they may have, and can misuse. I’ve been there - it’s a terrible feeling - but you’ll get through it.</p>
<p>I agree that it is also prudent to explore your community college options. For us, it worked very well when D was summarily asked to leave HS after JR year and decided she was done with HS. She had to take a GED test at the end of July (she had no HS diploma) and as soon as the results were back in early August, she was allowed to enroll at CC. Her tuition costs there were about $1000/semester, plus another $500+ for books. She was able to take all her general ed courses from the same instructors who taught at flagship U in much larger but otherwise identical classes at MUCH higher tuition. She transferred to her private dream U after completing 3 semesters.</p>
<p>Good luck to you in sorting things out. I agree that putting a credit freeze with all bureaus on all accounts would be a good preventative while sorting things out. Most credit bureaus will waive any charge if the freeze is being requested because of suspected criminal activity (such as this case).</p>
<p>The free annual credit report site is <a href=“http://www.annualcreditreport.com%5B/url%5D”>http://www.annualcreditreport.com</a> . Use it to see if there are any accounts in your credit report that you do not recognize and put fraud alerts in the accounts. There should also be instructions on how to do credit freezes on them.</p>
<p>You should still continue with applications and such. Once acceptances and financial aid packages start coming in, you should decide whether you can really afford to do it.
Do warn your child of the possibility of you having to postpone college. </p>
<p>This is a tough situation. I’m sorry! Good luck!</p>
<p>Also, if might not help in this particular situation, but it would if there are any future problems. We have identity theft protection with Zander Insurance. We had a issue that I thought was identity theft. I wasn’t sure when I called and reported it and they still assigned an agent who was ready to work on my behalf, if I decided it was needed. When I discovered it really wasn’t identity theft, they still followed through, calling the next day to make sure all bases were covered. It might be worth a call to them to see what they could do in this case. Good luck!</p>
<p>I honestly think the OP is overreacting. Yes, identify theft is serious and disconcerting. But there is no evidence at this point that your savings or accounts have been compromised, and you are now on top of notifying all your financial intitutions and montoring your credit. If losses are incurred, usually the financial institution bears those anyway (they are the ones responsible for verifying that you are who you say you are – you are not responsible for fraud committed on your accounts). </p>
<p>I know you have had some concerns (from other threads) about your son going away to school… don’t let this become a reason to keep him home. By all means you need to clean this situation up and monitor it. But there is no reason for it to derail your son’s college plans.</p>
<p>OP, I have read that under such circumstances where your soc. sec. numbers have been used or linked to fraud, the affected people can be issued new numbers. That might be worth looking into. I have heard that children are particularly suseptable to such identity theft. Is your husband’s number on a child’s bank account? That is a very easy way for a person working at a bank to have access to multiple family member soc. sec. numbers. I would look into getting new numbers, personally! Good luck.
And, now that this has been discovered, I sort of agree with intparent. I really don’t think this will jeopardize your financial situation for college. If a scammer is caught, the title company, or involved businesses would probably be the ones to file charges and go to court to prosecute, not you personally. This will be a good lesson for your children about protecting sensitive information.</p>
<p>I personally think it wont be too difficult to resolve. Just play the waiting game for now and don’t jeopardize your choices yet.</p>
<p>Many people I know suffered illness in family, legal issues, or loss of employment and still soldiered on in college. Your issues are comparatively less serious.</p>
<p>I agree completely. Posters are giving advice about community college as if the OP has lost the house and life savings, and the OP has titled the thread a big financial disaster. It’s not?? This is a law enforcement issue not a financial planning question.</p>
<p>Sounds to me like you are over-reacting. Some posters here think every kid who kids the slightest bump in the road have to lower their sights to CC.</p>
<p>OP seems to be over-reacting to an attempted identity theft. Consider subscribibg to an identity theft service & obtaining your family’s credit reports.</p>
<p>Chris, this a parent posting about their financial situation, not a student. Always good to actually read the issue before making suggestions. And it makes no sense for the kid to just delay 4-5 years because their parent may have had an identify theft issue. It makes no sense to delay at all…</p>
<p>I may be missing something here, but I am thinking about the OPs statement that the scammer may have been the one who originally contacted him/her. Could this be a type of scam where someone contacts the person about a confabulated mess, then offers to clean it up for a fee?</p>
<p>I read an article recently about a scam where someone allegedly from a bank contacts the person, then asks the person to “verify” who they are by giving the caller their account number. Could this be a variation of that?</p>
And it makes no sense for the kid to just delay 4-5 years because their parent may have had an identify theft issue. It makes no sense to delay at all…</p>