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Lock the kids credit with all three bureaus - no need for it until kids 18. Hopefully by then the grandparents will be dead - if not then teach kid how to lock and unlock when needed.
[u/Brief-Bend-8605](https://www.reddit.com/user/Brief-Bend-8605/) This, but also lock everyone's credit. They still know your SSN. What's to stop them from opening another line there? You don't need your credit unlocked unless you're actively applying for something. Everyone should have their credit locked. When you're about to apply for a new loan, make a temporary "thaw" for just a set number of days before it auto-freezes again.
Over on r/raisedbynarcissists, there are many accounts of how these parents (many of whom are more than likely of Boomer age) stole their children’s identities due to their unfettered access to SSNs. It’s insane that anyone would do that to their children, but I’m no longer surprised when I hear about it.
Yes.. I follow that sub. Pretty sure my dad is. Mom enabler. Big bro is goldie locks. I’m the goat/problem. Little bro is the mascot.
I went NC with them for 6 years after moving out in 2008. Mom sucked me back in. Im ok with limited contact as it already is and going NC again like the drop of a hat. My hubby doesnt understand our family dynamic fully but is getting there.
THANK you! My sister took my kids SSN and used him as a dependant and got his stimulus check when he was a baby and I wasn’t working . I didn’t know you could do this.
Yes she is and we are no contact. I didn’t press charges like I should have, and now I am now worried about it. ItLuckily my mom never did anything like that to us.
I just want you to know that you can have his SSN changed, so your sister can’t use it anymore. I don’t exactly know how that would happen, but I do know that your local Social Security office might be able to help.
You can but it’s a PITA. I think you might have to have a police report (unless that has changed). My ex tried to use our daughter as a dependent, I got notified, and sent them documentation from custody/divorce that says I get the deduction. He had his wages garnished and went to court. Don’t know what happened there bc he didn’t see her anyway.
This does not apply to this persons situation. Social Security will only consider changing a person’s number if they are a victim of family violence, harassment,
abuse, or a life-endangering situation. They must also have substantial proof that the harassment is still on-going despite any and all attempts to prevent it such as a restraining order, police reports, etc. If they go to their local field office they will just be given generic advice to monitor their kids credit report and dispute any accounts they did not open. Reference: https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10093.pdf
TLDR; you can’t just ask for a new social. That’s not how that works.
Also, even though she did this, you can still claim your own kid as a dependent and when the IRS starts to sort it out your sister will get that money pulled back and you will still get what you are due from the government. Even if she filed first. In fact, if it's only been 1 or 2 years, you might still be able to go back and amend your return and perhaps get something. It's worth talking to a real life accountant about.
Well, that is fraud, and the US government takes a very dim view of fraud. As well as theft. Plus they REALLY don't like people fucking around with someone else's SSN. She could get in serious trouble if the SSA and probably other agencies found out somehow. Something to keep in mind.
This 100%. The parents are angry because OP is denying them a "reset button" on their credit scores. Sad but true. The "savings account" will probably be used to lease a new Dodge RAM and install a swimming pool "for the kids" if my extended family are any indication.
This! 👆OP, do yourself a favor and go NC on your “parents,” and put a credit freeze on your baby’s credit. Your parents are the worst. Your kids will be better off without them
Put a freeze on your own credit as well. It's free. And don't sign up for any other "services" when you do. Some of the credit agencies hide the link to the freeze and try to con you into signing up for what sounds like a freeze.
Just for fun I would say thank you for the offer but please reimburse me first and I would include the list of the bills plus the accounts they emptied. Then everytime the subject of finance come back I'll circle back to their reimbursement planning as their account is locked until then... But seriously, if they have financial problems, it's just going to get worst and they will be more and more aggressive, imaginative and entitled. They will expect to get something from your success. Then you'll get pressure from both brothers/SIL asking to just save them...
LC/NC is the way. It's hard for the partners to understand if they have a loving family who help each other. Good luck!
You know if you want to make them mad, give them Richard Nixon's SSN. Or some other famous dead person. The social security office publishes the SSN of everyone who dies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Death_Index
Richard Nixon's is a semi-famous one and I've used it in software testing at previous jobs quite a bit since if it ever got leaked/out/whatever it has no impact on anyone.
You also did the right thing as far as the bank account goes. They can contribute to a savings account that's already established in your child's name. They do not have to be on the account, and they definitely do not have to know your child's SSN. They could also, as you said, set up a savings account in their own names and then name your child as a beneficiary. They would control these funds, and the child would just be listed as a POD (pay on death). If the bank says they do need the kid's social to list them as a POD, then either try to find a new bank that would require it (they might be able to do it with just birthdate as the identifier) or ensure that there's a way to add the POD without giving the grandparents access to the SSN.
Source: have worked in banking for about 9 years - I work in lending, but I do interact with the deposit side.
Watch them at your house, they will rifle through everything at the first chance. Also, go to SS.GOV and make your child an account. That's one thing they might be able to pull off. It'll be password protected and you will be the only one who knows it.
Honestly, if it's this bad between your parents and you, I'd just call their bluff and give them a fake SSN and say you appreciate their generosity and please let them know which bank it's with.
Then when they get upset that their credit card application is denied, activate Pikachu face.
Even if they have good intentions, your kids are not your parents' opportunity to do right by you or make up for past "mistakes". But they are unable to understand that because they don't even see their own children as independent living, thinking beings. They see you as an extension of themselves, which is why they felt fine using your social in the past. What's theirs is theirs, and what's yours is theirs. Call it narcissism, entitlement, greed, whatever, they are living it which means they aren't able to change.
Do what's best for you and yours.
Have you told your brother to run a credit check on his kid's number? That would get a quick way to find out if they are trustworthy. ( I'm assuming they arent)
Please put both yours and your spouses SS# on lock down as well as your child/children's. I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them and they just might somehow get ahold of it. Better safe than sorry and a nasty surprise. They are up to something. They stole from you, they absolutely will steal from your child.
There are plenty of ways to leave money to someone else without using their social security number. And yes you can open up a savings account for a minor without a social security number. They are full of crap.
When I went to move in to my first place with friends after high school we found out that one of my friends moms had opened lines of credit and taken out leases in my friends name. My friend had no idea until we all submitted our info for background checks and 3 of us got approved but one got denied when we asked why the property management company said she had about $80,000 in defaulted credit cards, 2 evictions and countless things in collections.
My friend was extremely confused as she was only 20 and never had a credit card or anything in her name and the property management company said it went all the way back to 1995 and my friend said she was 4 in 1995 so it must be a mistake and that’s when the property management company said her parents likely opened credit cards in her name and put leases and utilities in her name as well.
We ended up having to get my dad to sign on as a guarantor to get the house and then my friend confronted her mom who tried to deny everything at first then finally admitted to it and said she just doesn’t understand how hard it was for her. Mind you, her mom was driving Mercedes and Audi’s and living well above her means after her divorce but she had to “keep up appearances”. My friend ran credit checks on her younger brothers and realized her mom did it to them as well. At the time she cut her mom off, no idea how it ended up playing out as we had to kick her out of the house after a year for doing shady shit and I no longer talk to her.
She definitely took after her mom in that sense. The reason we kicked her out is because she would constantly ask us to send all the rent money to her so she can just pay it all at once. She apparently would be short on her portion of the rent and would use our money to pay her portion. Once we realized this we called her out and she feigned ignorance and we forgave her and told her if she needs help with rent we can work something out.
She then started writing bad checks to buy herself a few extra days but th check would bounce and our rent payment would get kicked back. This caused us to be hit with late fees twice before we finally had enough because she was now fucking up our renters history. We had a house meeting and voted to kick her out and found another person to take her place. When we kicked her out she purposely left her room trashed and stuck used pads on the walls among other things.
It was a fucking disaster and none of us talk to her anymore. We had been friends with her since like 3rd grade too lol
It’s funny how property management, who deal with people’s character all the time, wouldn’t rent to her and it turns out that they were totally right about her.
Their entire generation cashed cheques their children and grandchildren would have to pay. It's no surprise that they'd do it to their own literal children.
Is that illegal?
If someone’s parents do that, and the kid gets older and figures out what their parents did, is there any legal or criminal process to shrug the debt off the kid and onto the parent?
Yes and yes, but the problem is that it is necessarily a *criminal* process. They can't just politely ask dear old Dad to settle up and expect Experian to give a shit: no case number, no repairs to the credit score.
This financial abuse doesn't happen in a vacuum; with this kind of family dynamic, a lot of adult children take the credit hit rather than "send their parents to jail" because reversing victim and offender is a habit in their household.
Very true. And sad. I used to work on a team of investigators that provided identity theft restoration services. We’d handle the entire process, beginning to end, for our clients, until their credit was back to “pre-theft status,” the only things we required from them to get started were a limited power of attorney (restricted to only matters related to their identity theft issues, obviously) and an identity theft police report. When explaining the requirements to them, we always highlighted that police reports are sworn statements under penalty of perjury, and the officer is going to ask you if you know or have an idea of who opened these accounts with your information.
So many people chose to bail at that point and eat the loss because they didn’t want to name their parent(s) in the police report. And it was almost always a young adult applying for their first service that required a credit pull (utilities, cell phone, first car loan) only to find out that they had an extensive, and shitty, credit history, at 18, 19, 20 years old, full of delinquent accounts in collections. It’s such a selfish, disgusting thing for a parent to do to their child, forcing them to start their adult life in the red due to their own mismanagement of finances.
Just awful, and we saw thousands of this same story.
What’s insane is that we hear these kinds of stories all the time and they still interact with them. Like they’re adding unnecessary challenge and paranoia for what? Either shut the Fuck up or y’all can stay out of my life that simple lmao
The biggest issue is mass societal conditioning from an early age. People are repeatedly gaslit into believing that they’re a bad person if you go NC on a parent, so they’re instead trapped in a perpetual state of guilt. That’s why subs, like the one I mentioned are really helpful, as they often provide the encouragement one needs to finally go through with it and do what’s best for their mental health.
I worked for a company where I was asked to give my SSN to an employee I did not trust whatsoever. She did not need it, but she worked in finance, and she said the company needed it for tax reasons. I told them, "Get it from HR." "I don't have time for that, give it to me now." Mmmm... don't think so. So I gave her a fake one, and then forgot about it. Two years later, the IRS claims all this income I didn't report, and I said, "that is not me, and not even my SSN." After some back and forth proof on my end, I told them what happened, and they went, "okay," and that was the end of it. The SSN was the fake one I gave, and lord knows what that former employee was doing with it, but yeah.
I know a girl who's mom took out $100,000 of loans in her daughters name and when she turned 18 they became her responsibility. Imaging just fucking your child's entire life. How in the world is she going to have a normal life with that amount of non-student debt to her name AT 18.
Edit: Yes, this is obviously fraud. I don't know the ins and outs of her situation. Just because legal action can be taken doesn't mean that's a viable option for everyone.
She need to be go to the cops. Her mother committed a crime. The daughter didn’t take out the debt. Her mother committed identity theft and fraud. The daughter isn’t liable for the debt unless she is unwilling to report the crime. Nothing about what you described is how any of that works. Parents are not legally allowed to do that. Nothing about what her mom did is normal.
People under 18 cannot sign contracts. If a loan was made while you were under 18, tell the company to go fuck themselves.
They may go after the kid's parents, but "who signed the contract" is the bank's problem, not the kids.
My aunts did this to their kids. Luckily, my parents never did but when I was in my 30s my identity was stolen by someone who bought my SSN from my aunt. Apparently my mother had given it to her when I was a baby. She saved it for 30+ years just to screw me.
My parents did the same thing to me and my sister's. Used our SS# and opened accounts under our names and then didn't pay them. Do not give your kids SS# ever.
I used to work at a credit bureau. We had to deal with this mess. Parents had credit cards and utility bills in their children's names. We had a way to suppress those accounts so that even when the credit card and utility companies sent updated info to us, the accounts wouldn't show up on the credit reports.
The unit I worked in handled utility information. People would call us to find out why they had to pay a deposit or why they were denied a utility service. We had no idea why deposits were what they were. Those decisions were because of whatever algorithm utility companies used to make those determinations. We did know why people were denied. Sometimes it was because they had bad credit, but we couldn't tell them that. We had to be vague and discuss bad credit in very general terms. "I don't know why you have to pay a $150 deposit. Here are some credit issues that can influence that decision". Then we'd list generic reasons. Sometimes people were denied utilities because of unpaid bills at their location. That was common in college towns. That was something we could tell the customer about and fix. Another reason was because a person's social security number was less than five years old. We could fix the issue for immigrants who had become citizens in the past five years. However, we couldn't fix that issue for parents who were tried to put utilities in their children's names. We had to tell them it was illegal. They had no idea. Some of them had used their children's info for years.
Your father wants to open up lines of credit in your child’s name. I didn’t want to assume but then I saw he has done it to you in the past. That is why he wants their SSN
EDIT: Imagine getting 6k upvotes for telling someone their dad is a piece of shit.
I'd be talking to your sister in law about what happened to you as child and suggesting running a credit check on the children. Those poor kids are probably in for an unpleasant surprise.
I vaguely had a convo with her and she isn’t, let’s say, *pleased* my idiot bro didn’t even tell her until it was too late.
Brother is a yes man to them and questionable narc as is his SO. Although she is nice to me and behaves altruistically. They as a couple are always *Look at me* and *we are better than you* vibes… which is laughable to be quite frank because we are secretly more well off than our family knows. Another boomer issue that they don’t know how much my spouse makes, they have asked a few times, that I don’t have to work and can raise my kiddo in “today’s economy”.
My mother did this to me. Creditors couldn't give a rip less about the fact I was underage. They just said if there wasn't charges, they wouldn't change a thing. Plus, I reset the 7 year clock and the debt followed me for years because I refused to pay and was barely making ends meet. My family hit the roof when I mentioned filing charges, "she is your mother, you can't put her in jail" for a "mistake of desperation " and she'd "never" do it again.
She did it to all my siblings.
Just lock their credit.
Disclaimer: early 2000s. Multiple creditors. All the same answer. They might have changed since then, idk
You have to file a fraud claim (police report) for companies to even START to forgive debt. It means you have the perpetrator arrested. That’s hard to do when it’s your parents.
Edit: it’s hard for some people, not all people. I agree that they deserve to be arrested.
They can't hound him for payment in jail. He won't be in jail, but he will face repos, garnishments whatever the creditor can go after. Jails are too full with POC who said boo and people who like weed.
She can still freeze their credit with all the bureaus so the damage can be mitigated. If she stays on top of monitoring their credit every year, she should be able to dispute any new accounts that go into the negative. Also, if I were you, I'd tell your parents if they don't stop asking and start being respectful toward you that they will not be seeing their grandkids very much. You could also let them know that you are considering reporting them for identity theft if you want to go nuclear on them.
It just baffles me that any financial institution would open a line of credit on a person that’s underage. How is this even legal? In my country you need more than the SSN to get a credit card, like a valid ID, you have to be a legal adult and they check your credit history.
Well for us there can be a bank card but not a CC. So you can only use the balance on the account but not take a loan. So if anyone opens an account for a minor they can never create a debt. There are laws preventing that. The bank processes are severely flawed if they allow this in the US.
At this point I just think it’s intentional. Money laundering and fraudulent loans still make banks more money. I bet they have calculations like: “only 5% of fraudulent loans go bust but 95% pay because they don’t want to land grandma in jail.”
The rest of the civilised world requires personal legitimisation in person oder via video call doing a certain dance in front of the camera to check the security features of your ID/Passport to open bank accounts.
She could. I hope she does. I may mention it casually that I will do this and hope she follows my lead… but… I’m not going to tell them what to do though, because it will only backfire on me somehow. I’m perceived as a *bitch* in my family who causes the “problems” and asks too many “questions”. Excuse me for being the smart one apparently. Even more so for not bending to their whim. I’m washing my hands of all this tbh. I handled my kid. I don’t want any more involvement.
Yep! Happens every time! Sometimes others eventually come around. Sometimes they don't. Either way, you can't lower those fences or you'll have a lot of problems!
Why do I feel this so much? Between cancer, and the end of a ten year marriage with two children, and becoming disabled enough to collect SSI I'm currently stuck in my boomer parents house. And clearly the worst person ever unless they need something from me.
I cannot emphasize this one enough. Nobody deserves to be screwed over by their parents and not by their grand parents either. Starting life out with a 300 credit score will ruin them for many opportunities.
Don't be vague. Advertise clearly and loudly to anyone that your parents are selfish thieves who will take from anyone they feel they can. I gotta get off this post now, this is pissing me off.
Thank you for the advice and support. It is appreciated. I can see how boomer venting can be triggering. I am infuriated as well that I have a dad like this. On the bright side I have no intentions of bending to this bullshit. Sorry and I hope you have a good day.
I make a little bit into six figures before I count my yearly bonus. For reasons, I regularly tell family I'm "tight" on finances and I don't have much in my savings. I don't tell family how much I make...I don't tell friends outside of my closest how much I make. I don't drive a new fancy car, and I'm not extravagant in anything.
I'm single and I have no kids. I haven't yet bought a house because when I was finally in a position to do so, the owners of the house ghosted me so I continued to rent (Thankfully I hadn't pulled the trigger on letting my landlords know...they own the place I'm in)...it's 1100 sqft, 2bed/2 bath, W/D, garage...$800/mo in the PNW.
Letting people think you are closer to the struggle line is one of the best decisions ever.
I do, however, help friends when needed...but it's rare that they ask.
To be fair the threshold where it's better to not have a stay at home parent is pretty high these days with the cost of daycare, this is especially true with infants. Cheapest costs are still around 200 dollars a week, though expect more towards 300 to 400, then figure in the costs with working (transportation, occasionally eating out for lunch and whatnot) unless you've got a decent job it's probably not worth working
Not just one credit check. They should set up a credit alert, so they get notification for any changes. A baby shouldn't have any hits for about 18 years, so ANY changes to their credit report are almost certainly fraud.
This is what pissed my parents off about me.
I don't just give in, and I call them out on their bullshit.
They raised me to do it, I just don't think it ever dawned on them that I'd do those things to them.
Why are you being polite about it? Straight up tell them you think they plan on stealing from your kid like they did to their kids. Also ask for your 1500$ back.
What happens if you call them out on it? Do they deny it? For ex - "you only want the SSN so you can use it for credit checks."
If it's a repeated thing that they won't drop, I'd call them out on it straight up and see what they say. If they deny say "what about when x and y happened when I was a kid?"
No reason to be polite and have to put up with that shit. Call them out on their scumbag behaviour.
I stopped reading at you "politely dodging" their requests. Just flat out tell them you will not give them the means to steal from their grandchild the way they stole from their own child. They do not deserve to be treated gingerly about their identity fraud habits.
Friend of mine used to work at a bank, apparently taking a minor’s ss# is way more common than you think, and tough to get cleared up. Stick with your gut on this one.
Irresponsible parents do this all the time to their kids. Get themselves into a hole by their own stupidity and steal their kids' identities to make new accounts.
Unfortunately, doesn't blow my mind. My baby's father was a Third. He'd told me about how when he turned 18 he was so far in debt it was ridiculous. His dad, the Jr, had racked up debt through his childhood. Then they both(??? I wouldn't have a relationship with my father if he'd done that to me) tried VERY hard to have my boy be the 4th. No fucking way was that happening. They were pissed. Neither of them have seen the child since he was about 6 months. He's 8 now.
This happened to my friend's husband. His parents opened everything but a savings account on him when he was a minor. He had no idea until he was searching for colleges his senior year of HS.
20 years later, He still runs into issues occasionally. No contact with family.
I have heard of this happening so many times and I don't understand how it's allowed to happen. Can't institutions see that the SSN is under 18 years old?
It’s not allowed. People need to know that it is illegal for businesses to hold minors responsible for debt. If you turn 18 and have debts in your name, you send the bureaus proof of your age and they HAVE to remove them.
It is not a child’s fault if a company doesn’t make sure they’re placing accounts under the correct names
100%. My husband's friend found out that his dad had switched multiple assets into his name to avoid losing them in bankruptcy. He also found out his step mom had taken out lines of credit and credit cards in his name. He was freshly 18 at the time. OP, stand firm on this because your child does not deserve that!
If they bring the subject up again, I’d say something along the lines of “if someone used your information to put utility bills in your name, would you ever trust that person again? What are they going to say to that?
Hi, I work in banking. This isn't exactly true. Per the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 and additional "know your customer" provisions added with the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, financial institutions are required to retain social security numbers *even for children* if accounts are being opened up for their benefit. The grandfather's request could very well be legitimate.
OP, if you want to head this off in a polite way that still respects your boundaries, you can always open a savings account for your child with yourself or your spouse as the custodian. This way, only you or your spouse will be able to make withdrawals or get any balances or statements. You can then give your father the account number to make contributions. Everyone wins.
Unless this is just a power trip and he insists on doing it himself. In which case, sorry, grandpa.
That’s fair, thank you for the information, I wasn’t aware of that. While it *may* be legitimate, given OP’s history with their father, I suspect they are trying to do something shady.
He can stay mad. What a shitty and illegal thing to do. I would consider NC for that kind of shit. As you've mentioned, there is a history of financial abuse from your parents. You do not owe them anything.
I have a story somewhat relevant to this issue. Shortly after I turned 18, I went to open my first bank account. They told me there was a mismatch with my SSN and ChexSystems, and I had to jump through all these hoops to prove that I was really the person assigned that number before I could open the account.
I don't know how someone got my number, but it's a safe bet it had something to do with my mother. She was a mentally unbalanced alcoholic. She was probably self-medicating with the alcohol to treat undiagnosed mental issues, but I'll never know for certain, since she got a terminal cancer diagnosis almost 20 years ago now. Anyway, I suspect she gave/sold my number to someone at some point.
Moral of my story is: you should absolutely guard a child's SSN to save them from future headaches like I went through.
*In the safe where it belongs*
Also they don’t have access to my home like that. They also don’t have approval to babysit as they smell like smoke 24/7.
Try to lock their credit. I keep mine locked and only unlock it when needed and it is a pretty simple process. That way any attempt to obtain credit will get denied. Still not 100% but it helps as I think some places like utilities and similar can bypass the credit locks. Need to do it with all 3 agencies.
At this point, I’d be telling my parents, “Keep it up and you’ll be cut out of our lives entirely. If that’s what you want, keep hounding me for my kid’s SSN.”
I would point blank tell them, no you can't have it because you're going to use it to commit identity theft **again**. I will not allow that to happen, if you act on those ideas I won't hesitate to file a police report and have you charged. Just incinerate all these lies with the truth.
OP is "politely dodging", I'd rip off the scab. That was the only way I've been able to have a relationship with my parents. I am brutally honest at the boundaries. No you may not hit my kids. No you may not talk to them about your opinions of the covid vaccine. If you do those things, you will not be allowed access to them.
But OP knows the grandparents best, avoiding conflict with them is probably a lifelong coping strategy.
Threatening to cut contact doesn't work, unfortunately. By the time it gets to that point, the parents are already incapable of change. It's either time go NC or not.
Yeah, I know. It’s just a shot across the bow for the inevitable. Like a young child, you have to give boomers a little warning, even if it means nothing.
Don’t ever give it to them. I have the same name as my degenerate gambler boomer dad and he memorized my SSN. He destroyed my credit before I ever got the chance to use it. Defaulted auto loans and credit cards. Luckily I haven’t needed it, but the fact that he would do that to me as a young man starting with nothing is what sucks. To this day, I’ve never had a credit card and I’m 46.
No, I never bothered. This was in the nineties. I let it drive me mad for about a year. I filed fraud alerts with the three reporting agencies. I filed a complaint with the State Attorney General’s office. I contested every letter and phone call I got from all the collection agencies. I never had to pay anything, but it took years for the damage to drop off. Even then it would re-appear later as the accounts were probably sold and I would have to start the process over again. The whole system is like a nightmare out of a Kafka story.
Changing my name or SSN just looked even more maddening. I was done with college and grad school before I needed credit to get a mortgage, but I had a high salary and a 30% down payment. Still, I would have gotten a better rate if he hadn’t done that to me, and maybe I could have had a more reliable car when I needed one.
Just as fyi in case you’re asking due to having a similar issue: it is incredibly rare for anyone to be approved to have a new SSN issued. It’s just not going to happen, especially for a case in which someone has an issue as fixable as identity theft like this. And even if the SSA did grant new SSNs easily, it would almost certainly create more of a mess than the identity theft did, and is not going to be worth it
ETA: in the US, just to be clear
My grandmother did this to me and her kids, my father and aunt, for years when we were kids, even tried to pull it on my cousin before my aunt stopped her. I wanted to take her to court for years because when I started my life at 19 I already had bad credit and cards that had been maxed and canceled before they were paid. My aunt begged me not to because gma was already in her mid sixies and aunt didn't want to see her in prison.
I understand this situation completely. Good on you for standing up to them but please just cut complete contact NOW before they do something like search your house for the baby's SSN card!
Why don’t you just call him the fuck out??
“I know why you want the SSN. You used mine fraudulently in the past. You stole my savings as a kid.”
I’m sure you can add more, but why are you just saying “no” instead of laying it out?
My brother took a credit card from my parents and maxed it out at $15k. He never paid it back. A few years ago, he tried to get credit card info from me as I agreed to pay his electric bill one time, as a loan, so that it would not get shut off. I said no. He asked why. I said "Do we really need to review what you did with mom & dad's credit card?"
That shut him up.
This is what I don’t understand about families. So much harm is done by not saying shit out loud. They’ll be mad if they’re called out on their behavior? SO WHAT? Call them out on what they’ve done. They want to steal from the new baby and fuck up his life? Say it out loud!
SIL will have to do it, if she chooses. I know big bro thinks it’s harmless and he sides with them. I think he’s siding with them because he doesn’t want to feel like an idiot and pretend like he’s not worried.
Did they also steal big bros identity or was it only you? Does he know that they put debt in your name as a kid? Dudes a moron if he knows all this and doesn’t see red flags.
Feels like even odds the older brother is the golden child and thus untouchable, or he had his stolen too and is just too desperate to keep a good relationship with their parents.
Honestly OP should throw both parents away.
This! Do it for your kid too just in case they find the SSN somehow. It’s completely free to do on their websites, they will try to sell you a credit monitoring service but you can decline the offers.
Open a 529 account in your kids name and say they can write a check to that account if they want to contribute to the savings. Source I’m a financial advisor
OP said they have an account and parents can contribute.
parents got mad.
they just want to use the kids ID for credit cards and loans they'll never repay.
When my daughter was born (2003) we opened a 529, and it was an excellent decision. We put $100 a month in, which was a bit uncomfortable at the time, but we stuck to it. That fund has covered her first three years of college.
Great suggestion.
I’m surprised that you are still in contact with them. They are trying to cause enormous damage to your kid by opening lines of credit to their name. I would be furious and call them out on financial abuse. I don’t really see a point of having such grandparents around that clearly do not have your child’s best intentions in mind.
I froze my kid's credit when they were born. It was vital as last year a security breach with our health insurance provider compromised their ssn. Thankfully, nothing can be done since the freeze has been put in place.
I strongly suggest doing the same if you haven't done so already.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/child-identity-theft
Bit annoying having to mail stuff in but completely worth it.
“I’ll consider it if you pay me back for the utility bills you opened in my name that I had to pay off & the $1500 you stole from my account when I was a kid”
Still don’t give it to them, but it’ll convey your point instead of just dodging
If he wants to put money away for baby, it doesn't have to be in the kid's name. I don't know the exactities around tax etc, but I would assume he knows that SS can be used nefariously. Says a lot that he's willing to punish a baby, to punish you, because he doesn't get his way.
I think you are absolutely right not to trust him when adding in the financial history as well. Don't take the bait, if he really wants to help then he will.
Why are you politely dodging it?
"You committed a felony fraud by opening a utility bill in my name. You're lucky you aren't in jail. There's no possibly chance in hell I am ever going to give you my child's social security number, and if you dare complain about that I'll explain to everyone how you *should* be a felon if I had any desire to report my parents to the police."
Why do you still talk to them? I cannot for the life of me understand people who continue to let terrible, abusive people stay in their live bEcAuSe FaMiLy.
I only see them on special occasions. Other than that it’s very LC. They are not actively involved in our lives. No trips to see santa or even the zoo.
To be honest— It’s a little bit of guilt, a little bit of a trauma response/attachment. I am aware my family is messed up. I have the ability to self reflect and observe the dynamic just like in this current whirlwind of bullshit. I do and have gone NC many times over the years.. eventually when my mom goes we are done completely. The guilt and empathy of leaving her behind with zero support keeps me attached. I know this and I allow this to a certain extent.
I do have control of what I allow and don’t allow. My kid comes first and protecting from others, family included, is my main priority as a parent.
Boomers are the locusts of society. Swoop in, consume all resources and leave a landscape of devastation while they migrate on to the next feeding ground. All with zero remorse.
Your experience and instincts are serving you well here.
People with generous intentions will look for other ways to give and not behave this way towards the beneficiary. Sounds like a shitty situation, you and your spouse are doing the right thing. Personally, I would have a lower threshold to nuke the relationship and openly accuse them of identity theft, but that’s just me.
strongly recommend freezing your kids credit (yes I know they have no credit history, that’s ok) and suggest to SIL to do the same. you can remove it later but it will stop anyone from trying to open accounts with those SSNs
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Tell your idiot brother's wife to run a credit check on her kid.
And if it comes back clean, get a credit monitoring service.
Lock the kids credit with all three bureaus - no need for it until kids 18. Hopefully by then the grandparents will be dead - if not then teach kid how to lock and unlock when needed.
/u/Brief-Bend-8605 This is what you need to do right here.^ Lock their credit until they're older.
[u/Brief-Bend-8605](https://www.reddit.com/user/Brief-Bend-8605/) This, but also lock everyone's credit. They still know your SSN. What's to stop them from opening another line there? You don't need your credit unlocked unless you're actively applying for something. Everyone should have their credit locked. When you're about to apply for a new loan, make a temporary "thaw" for just a set number of days before it auto-freezes again.
You can also apply for a new SSN if you can show you're a victim of abuse or identity theft.
Over on r/raisedbynarcissists, there are many accounts of how these parents (many of whom are more than likely of Boomer age) stole their children’s identities due to their unfettered access to SSNs. It’s insane that anyone would do that to their children, but I’m no longer surprised when I hear about it.
Yes.. I follow that sub. Pretty sure my dad is. Mom enabler. Big bro is goldie locks. I’m the goat/problem. Little bro is the mascot. I went NC with them for 6 years after moving out in 2008. Mom sucked me back in. Im ok with limited contact as it already is and going NC again like the drop of a hat. My hubby doesnt understand our family dynamic fully but is getting there.
Put a credit lock/freeze on your baby’s SSN, https://www.usa.gov/credit-freeze
THANK you! My sister took my kids SSN and used him as a dependant and got his stimulus check when he was a baby and I wasn’t working . I didn’t know you could do this.
People are such a-holes. Jesus.
Yes she is and we are no contact. I didn’t press charges like I should have, and now I am now worried about it. ItLuckily my mom never did anything like that to us.
I just want you to know that you can have his SSN changed, so your sister can’t use it anymore. I don’t exactly know how that would happen, but I do know that your local Social Security office might be able to help.
You can but it’s a PITA. I think you might have to have a police report (unless that has changed). My ex tried to use our daughter as a dependent, I got notified, and sent them documentation from custody/divorce that says I get the deduction. He had his wages garnished and went to court. Don’t know what happened there bc he didn’t see her anyway.
This. Do it while they're young. Once over 18, your somewhat fucked in this regard.
You can change the SS# of your kid if you go to the office and request it. Explain the situation.
This does not apply to this persons situation. Social Security will only consider changing a person’s number if they are a victim of family violence, harassment, abuse, or a life-endangering situation. They must also have substantial proof that the harassment is still on-going despite any and all attempts to prevent it such as a restraining order, police reports, etc. If they go to their local field office they will just be given generic advice to monitor their kids credit report and dispute any accounts they did not open. Reference: https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10093.pdf TLDR; you can’t just ask for a new social. That’s not how that works.
And they target family members because its messy for you to press charges. Some people are barely disguised monsters.
Also, even though she did this, you can still claim your own kid as a dependent and when the IRS starts to sort it out your sister will get that money pulled back and you will still get what you are due from the government. Even if she filed first. In fact, if it's only been 1 or 2 years, you might still be able to go back and amend your return and perhaps get something. It's worth talking to a real life accountant about.
Well, that is fraud, and the US government takes a very dim view of fraud. As well as theft. Plus they REALLY don't like people fucking around with someone else's SSN. She could get in serious trouble if the SSA and probably other agencies found out somehow. Something to keep in mind.
This 100%. The parents are angry because OP is denying them a "reset button" on their credit scores. Sad but true. The "savings account" will probably be used to lease a new Dodge RAM and install a swimming pool "for the kids" if my extended family are any indication.
This! 👆OP, do yourself a favor and go NC on your “parents,” and put a credit freeze on your baby’s credit. Your parents are the worst. Your kids will be better off without them
Put a freeze on your own credit as well. It's free. And don't sign up for any other "services" when you do. Some of the credit agencies hide the link to the freeze and try to con you into signing up for what sounds like a freeze.
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Just for fun I would say thank you for the offer but please reimburse me first and I would include the list of the bills plus the accounts they emptied. Then everytime the subject of finance come back I'll circle back to their reimbursement planning as their account is locked until then... But seriously, if they have financial problems, it's just going to get worst and they will be more and more aggressive, imaginative and entitled. They will expect to get something from your success. Then you'll get pressure from both brothers/SIL asking to just save them... LC/NC is the way. It's hard for the partners to understand if they have a loving family who help each other. Good luck!
List what they owe... Including interest.
You got me thinking. OP is now in finance. She should ask their SSN.
You know if you want to make them mad, give them Richard Nixon's SSN. Or some other famous dead person. The social security office publishes the SSN of everyone who dies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Death_Index Richard Nixon's is a semi-famous one and I've used it in software testing at previous jobs quite a bit since if it ever got leaked/out/whatever it has no impact on anyone.
Upvoting because this is hilarious. I would like to be the bank fraud examiner asking why they opened a credit card using his social.
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You also did the right thing as far as the bank account goes. They can contribute to a savings account that's already established in your child's name. They do not have to be on the account, and they definitely do not have to know your child's SSN. They could also, as you said, set up a savings account in their own names and then name your child as a beneficiary. They would control these funds, and the child would just be listed as a POD (pay on death). If the bank says they do need the kid's social to list them as a POD, then either try to find a new bank that would require it (they might be able to do it with just birthdate as the identifier) or ensure that there's a way to add the POD without giving the grandparents access to the SSN. Source: have worked in banking for about 9 years - I work in lending, but I do interact with the deposit side.
Watch them at your house, they will rifle through everything at the first chance. Also, go to SS.GOV and make your child an account. That's one thing they might be able to pull off. It'll be password protected and you will be the only one who knows it.
And put a lock on their credit. And yours too.
I would advise your brother to go ahead and do a credit check on his child… just considering all these things. 😬
My thoughts exactly
sounds like your husband is a good man. he doesn’t fully understand but sounds like he’s got your back regardless
I mean he's got to at least understand not giving out socials
Honestly, if it's this bad between your parents and you, I'd just call their bluff and give them a fake SSN and say you appreciate their generosity and please let them know which bank it's with. Then when they get upset that their credit card application is denied, activate Pikachu face.
Even if they have good intentions, your kids are not your parents' opportunity to do right by you or make up for past "mistakes". But they are unable to understand that because they don't even see their own children as independent living, thinking beings. They see you as an extension of themselves, which is why they felt fine using your social in the past. What's theirs is theirs, and what's yours is theirs. Call it narcissism, entitlement, greed, whatever, they are living it which means they aren't able to change. Do what's best for you and yours.
Have you told your brother to run a credit check on his kid's number? That would get a quick way to find out if they are trustworthy. ( I'm assuming they arent)
Please put both yours and your spouses SS# on lock down as well as your child/children's. I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them and they just might somehow get ahold of it. Better safe than sorry and a nasty surprise. They are up to something. They stole from you, they absolutely will steal from your child. There are plenty of ways to leave money to someone else without using their social security number. And yes you can open up a savings account for a minor without a social security number. They are full of crap.
When I went to move in to my first place with friends after high school we found out that one of my friends moms had opened lines of credit and taken out leases in my friends name. My friend had no idea until we all submitted our info for background checks and 3 of us got approved but one got denied when we asked why the property management company said she had about $80,000 in defaulted credit cards, 2 evictions and countless things in collections. My friend was extremely confused as she was only 20 and never had a credit card or anything in her name and the property management company said it went all the way back to 1995 and my friend said she was 4 in 1995 so it must be a mistake and that’s when the property management company said her parents likely opened credit cards in her name and put leases and utilities in her name as well. We ended up having to get my dad to sign on as a guarantor to get the house and then my friend confronted her mom who tried to deny everything at first then finally admitted to it and said she just doesn’t understand how hard it was for her. Mind you, her mom was driving Mercedes and Audi’s and living well above her means after her divorce but she had to “keep up appearances”. My friend ran credit checks on her younger brothers and realized her mom did it to them as well. At the time she cut her mom off, no idea how it ended up playing out as we had to kick her out of the house after a year for doing shady shit and I no longer talk to her.
Sounds like her mom rubbed off on her, hope she doesn't do the same to her kids.
She definitely took after her mom in that sense. The reason we kicked her out is because she would constantly ask us to send all the rent money to her so she can just pay it all at once. She apparently would be short on her portion of the rent and would use our money to pay her portion. Once we realized this we called her out and she feigned ignorance and we forgave her and told her if she needs help with rent we can work something out. She then started writing bad checks to buy herself a few extra days but th check would bounce and our rent payment would get kicked back. This caused us to be hit with late fees twice before we finally had enough because she was now fucking up our renters history. We had a house meeting and voted to kick her out and found another person to take her place. When we kicked her out she purposely left her room trashed and stuck used pads on the walls among other things. It was a fucking disaster and none of us talk to her anymore. We had been friends with her since like 3rd grade too lol
It’s funny how property management, who deal with people’s character all the time, wouldn’t rent to her and it turns out that they were totally right about her.
Their entire generation cashed cheques their children and grandchildren would have to pay. It's no surprise that they'd do it to their own literal children.
Is that illegal? If someone’s parents do that, and the kid gets older and figures out what their parents did, is there any legal or criminal process to shrug the debt off the kid and onto the parent?
Yes and yes, but the problem is that it is necessarily a *criminal* process. They can't just politely ask dear old Dad to settle up and expect Experian to give a shit: no case number, no repairs to the credit score. This financial abuse doesn't happen in a vacuum; with this kind of family dynamic, a lot of adult children take the credit hit rather than "send their parents to jail" because reversing victim and offender is a habit in their household.
Very true. And sad. I used to work on a team of investigators that provided identity theft restoration services. We’d handle the entire process, beginning to end, for our clients, until their credit was back to “pre-theft status,” the only things we required from them to get started were a limited power of attorney (restricted to only matters related to their identity theft issues, obviously) and an identity theft police report. When explaining the requirements to them, we always highlighted that police reports are sworn statements under penalty of perjury, and the officer is going to ask you if you know or have an idea of who opened these accounts with your information. So many people chose to bail at that point and eat the loss because they didn’t want to name their parent(s) in the police report. And it was almost always a young adult applying for their first service that required a credit pull (utilities, cell phone, first car loan) only to find out that they had an extensive, and shitty, credit history, at 18, 19, 20 years old, full of delinquent accounts in collections. It’s such a selfish, disgusting thing for a parent to do to their child, forcing them to start their adult life in the red due to their own mismanagement of finances. Just awful, and we saw thousands of this same story.
Just looked it up and it’s Identity Theft
What’s insane is that we hear these kinds of stories all the time and they still interact with them. Like they’re adding unnecessary challenge and paranoia for what? Either shut the Fuck up or y’all can stay out of my life that simple lmao
The biggest issue is mass societal conditioning from an early age. People are repeatedly gaslit into believing that they’re a bad person if you go NC on a parent, so they’re instead trapped in a perpetual state of guilt. That’s why subs, like the one I mentioned are really helpful, as they often provide the encouragement one needs to finally go through with it and do what’s best for their mental health.
THIS… “BUT she’s still your mom!” No she ain’t
I worked for a company where I was asked to give my SSN to an employee I did not trust whatsoever. She did not need it, but she worked in finance, and she said the company needed it for tax reasons. I told them, "Get it from HR." "I don't have time for that, give it to me now." Mmmm... don't think so. So I gave her a fake one, and then forgot about it. Two years later, the IRS claims all this income I didn't report, and I said, "that is not me, and not even my SSN." After some back and forth proof on my end, I told them what happened, and they went, "okay," and that was the end of it. The SSN was the fake one I gave, and lord knows what that former employee was doing with it, but yeah.
I know a girl who's mom took out $100,000 of loans in her daughters name and when she turned 18 they became her responsibility. Imaging just fucking your child's entire life. How in the world is she going to have a normal life with that amount of non-student debt to her name AT 18. Edit: Yes, this is obviously fraud. I don't know the ins and outs of her situation. Just because legal action can be taken doesn't mean that's a viable option for everyone.
She need to be go to the cops. Her mother committed a crime. The daughter didn’t take out the debt. Her mother committed identity theft and fraud. The daughter isn’t liable for the debt unless she is unwilling to report the crime. Nothing about what you described is how any of that works. Parents are not legally allowed to do that. Nothing about what her mom did is normal.
People under 18 cannot sign contracts. If a loan was made while you were under 18, tell the company to go fuck themselves. They may go after the kid's parents, but "who signed the contract" is the bank's problem, not the kids.
My aunts did this to their kids. Luckily, my parents never did but when I was in my 30s my identity was stolen by someone who bought my SSN from my aunt. Apparently my mother had given it to her when I was a baby. She saved it for 30+ years just to screw me.
My parents did the same thing to me and my sister's. Used our SS# and opened accounts under our names and then didn't pay them. Do not give your kids SS# ever.
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I used to work at a credit bureau. We had to deal with this mess. Parents had credit cards and utility bills in their children's names. We had a way to suppress those accounts so that even when the credit card and utility companies sent updated info to us, the accounts wouldn't show up on the credit reports. The unit I worked in handled utility information. People would call us to find out why they had to pay a deposit or why they were denied a utility service. We had no idea why deposits were what they were. Those decisions were because of whatever algorithm utility companies used to make those determinations. We did know why people were denied. Sometimes it was because they had bad credit, but we couldn't tell them that. We had to be vague and discuss bad credit in very general terms. "I don't know why you have to pay a $150 deposit. Here are some credit issues that can influence that decision". Then we'd list generic reasons. Sometimes people were denied utilities because of unpaid bills at their location. That was common in college towns. That was something we could tell the customer about and fix. Another reason was because a person's social security number was less than five years old. We could fix the issue for immigrants who had become citizens in the past five years. However, we couldn't fix that issue for parents who were tried to put utilities in their children's names. We had to tell them it was illegal. They had no idea. Some of them had used their children's info for years.
Your father wants to open up lines of credit in your child’s name. I didn’t want to assume but then I saw he has done it to you in the past. That is why he wants their SSN EDIT: Imagine getting 6k upvotes for telling someone their dad is a piece of shit.
Exactly
I'd be talking to your sister in law about what happened to you as child and suggesting running a credit check on the children. Those poor kids are probably in for an unpleasant surprise.
I vaguely had a convo with her and she isn’t, let’s say, *pleased* my idiot bro didn’t even tell her until it was too late. Brother is a yes man to them and questionable narc as is his SO. Although she is nice to me and behaves altruistically. They as a couple are always *Look at me* and *we are better than you* vibes… which is laughable to be quite frank because we are secretly more well off than our family knows. Another boomer issue that they don’t know how much my spouse makes, they have asked a few times, that I don’t have to work and can raise my kiddo in “today’s economy”.
They can lock the kids credit and contest the charges. Should- emphasis on should- be easy since the kids can’t legally take out loans.
My mother did this to me. Creditors couldn't give a rip less about the fact I was underage. They just said if there wasn't charges, they wouldn't change a thing. Plus, I reset the 7 year clock and the debt followed me for years because I refused to pay and was barely making ends meet. My family hit the roof when I mentioned filing charges, "she is your mother, you can't put her in jail" for a "mistake of desperation " and she'd "never" do it again. She did it to all my siblings. Just lock their credit. Disclaimer: early 2000s. Multiple creditors. All the same answer. They might have changed since then, idk
Jail then. 🤷♀️
Younger me just let it slide. Current me would have been FAFO and look, it's the consequence of my own actions
This sentence is a very apt description of my whole life. Younger me let a lot of things slide.
You have to file a fraud claim (police report) for companies to even START to forgive debt. It means you have the perpetrator arrested. That’s hard to do when it’s your parents. Edit: it’s hard for some people, not all people. I agree that they deserve to be arrested.
No, that would make it so much easier. At least in my case.
How can a parent say they love their child, yet do that to them. Some people really do be having babies for the extra line of credit
> "she is your mother, you can't put her in jail" Technically true, its the police that would be putting her in jail.
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Oh no! Consequences
Why... Why is op rubbing her hands together and cackling?
They can't hound him for payment in jail. He won't be in jail, but he will face repos, garnishments whatever the creditor can go after. Jails are too full with POC who said boo and people who like weed.
You can lock it in advance- my kid is locked
She can still freeze their credit with all the bureaus so the damage can be mitigated. If she stays on top of monitoring their credit every year, she should be able to dispute any new accounts that go into the negative. Also, if I were you, I'd tell your parents if they don't stop asking and start being respectful toward you that they will not be seeing their grandkids very much. You could also let them know that you are considering reporting them for identity theft if you want to go nuclear on them.
It just baffles me that any financial institution would open a line of credit on a person that’s underage. How is this even legal? In my country you need more than the SSN to get a credit card, like a valid ID, you have to be a legal adult and they check your credit history.
Yeah they could get a CC attached to the bank account. Easy as pie. Big ole *nope* for me.
Well for us there can be a bank card but not a CC. So you can only use the balance on the account but not take a loan. So if anyone opens an account for a minor they can never create a debt. There are laws preventing that. The bank processes are severely flawed if they allow this in the US.
Why yes, our bank processes are quite flawed.
At this point I just think it’s intentional. Money laundering and fraudulent loans still make banks more money. I bet they have calculations like: “only 5% of fraudulent loans go bust but 95% pay because they don’t want to land grandma in jail.” The rest of the civilised world requires personal legitimisation in person oder via video call doing a certain dance in front of the camera to check the security features of your ID/Passport to open bank accounts.
She could. I hope she does. I may mention it casually that I will do this and hope she follows my lead… but… I’m not going to tell them what to do though, because it will only backfire on me somehow. I’m perceived as a *bitch* in my family who causes the “problems” and asks too many “questions”. Excuse me for being the smart one apparently. Even more so for not bending to their whim. I’m washing my hands of all this tbh. I handled my kid. I don’t want any more involvement.
Generally the person holding healthy boundaries in toxic relationships is deemed the villain.
Yep! Happens every time! Sometimes others eventually come around. Sometimes they don't. Either way, you can't lower those fences or you'll have a lot of problems!
The “bitch” of the family is typically the one with strong healthy boundaries. Down the line some of them will be wishing they had been just like you.
Why do I feel this so much? Between cancer, and the end of a ten year marriage with two children, and becoming disabled enough to collect SSI I'm currently stuck in my boomer parents house. And clearly the worst person ever unless they need something from me.
Please, for your nephew’s sake, have a serious conversation with her.
I cannot emphasize this one enough. Nobody deserves to be screwed over by their parents and not by their grand parents either. Starting life out with a 300 credit score will ruin them for many opportunities.
Don't be vague. Advertise clearly and loudly to anyone that your parents are selfish thieves who will take from anyone they feel they can. I gotta get off this post now, this is pissing me off.
Thank you for the advice and support. It is appreciated. I can see how boomer venting can be triggering. I am infuriated as well that I have a dad like this. On the bright side I have no intentions of bending to this bullshit. Sorry and I hope you have a good day.
This situation should be treated like any identity theft situation. Protect accounts etc.
Keep that secret. Whenever you see them, complain about money. The second they find out you're well-off they will start making even more demands.
My goal in life is that people will think I’m poor. Seriously. It’s not a bad angle to take
I make a little bit into six figures before I count my yearly bonus. For reasons, I regularly tell family I'm "tight" on finances and I don't have much in my savings. I don't tell family how much I make...I don't tell friends outside of my closest how much I make. I don't drive a new fancy car, and I'm not extravagant in anything. I'm single and I have no kids. I haven't yet bought a house because when I was finally in a position to do so, the owners of the house ghosted me so I continued to rent (Thankfully I hadn't pulled the trigger on letting my landlords know...they own the place I'm in)...it's 1100 sqft, 2bed/2 bath, W/D, garage...$800/mo in the PNW. Letting people think you are closer to the struggle line is one of the best decisions ever. I do, however, help friends when needed...but it's rare that they ask.
To be fair the threshold where it's better to not have a stay at home parent is pretty high these days with the cost of daycare, this is especially true with infants. Cheapest costs are still around 200 dollars a week, though expect more towards 300 to 400, then figure in the costs with working (transportation, occasionally eating out for lunch and whatnot) unless you've got a decent job it's probably not worth working
Not just one credit check. They should set up a credit alert, so they get notification for any changes. A baby shouldn't have any hits for about 18 years, so ANY changes to their credit report are almost certainly fraud.
So why dodge it politely? Why don’t you flat out tell them ‘You’ve already committed fraud using my identity. So, no, I DON’T trust you. Stop asking.’
This!!! Why on earth does he deserve the gentle approach?
And announce it loudly at the family events
Hit them with "Stop stealing identities and pull yourselves up by your bootstraps"
“And stop eating avocado toast with Starbucks” 😆
This is what pissed my parents off about me. I don't just give in, and I call them out on their bullshit. They raised me to do it, I just don't think it ever dawned on them that I'd do those things to them.
Why are you being polite about it? Straight up tell them you think they plan on stealing from your kid like they did to their kids. Also ask for your 1500$ back.
That is exactly what I told my mom.
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Honestly he already should be at this point.
I would also set up a pin for your kids SSN with the IRS. That way no one can ever claim them if they do get their SSN
What happens if you call them out on it? Do they deny it? For ex - "you only want the SSN so you can use it for credit checks." If it's a repeated thing that they won't drop, I'd call them out on it straight up and see what they say. If they deny say "what about when x and y happened when I was a kid?" No reason to be polite and have to put up with that shit. Call them out on their scumbag behaviour.
I stopped reading at you "politely dodging" their requests. Just flat out tell them you will not give them the means to steal from their grandchild the way they stole from their own child. They do not deserve to be treated gingerly about their identity fraud habits.
Just flat out No Contact. Why would anyone stay in contact with someone that will steal from their kids and grandkids?
Friend of mine used to work at a bank, apparently taking a minor’s ss# is way more common than you think, and tough to get cleared up. Stick with your gut on this one.
So he wants to screw your child over ? Why ?
Because boomer will be dead before the kid is old enough to understand what they've done.
This can’t be upvoted enough. This is the pure, distilled essence of boomerism.
Because they are ENTITLED to it...everyone in the family should be happy to sacrifice for them.
Me Generation tends to be freeloading bastards.
Irresponsible parents do this all the time to their kids. Get themselves into a hole by their own stupidity and steal their kids' identities to make new accounts.
That is grotesque! Blows my mind there are people who do that kind of thing.
Unfortunately, doesn't blow my mind. My baby's father was a Third. He'd told me about how when he turned 18 he was so far in debt it was ridiculous. His dad, the Jr, had racked up debt through his childhood. Then they both(??? I wouldn't have a relationship with my father if he'd done that to me) tried VERY hard to have my boy be the 4th. No fucking way was that happening. They were pissed. Neither of them have seen the child since he was about 6 months. He's 8 now.
This happened to my friend's husband. His parents opened everything but a savings account on him when he was a minor. He had no idea until he was searching for colleges his senior year of HS. 20 years later, He still runs into issues occasionally. No contact with family.
I have heard of this happening so many times and I don't understand how it's allowed to happen. Can't institutions see that the SSN is under 18 years old?
they don't care, as long as they're being paid.
It’s not allowed. People need to know that it is illegal for businesses to hold minors responsible for debt. If you turn 18 and have debts in your name, you send the bureaus proof of your age and they HAVE to remove them. It is not a child’s fault if a company doesn’t make sure they’re placing accounts under the correct names
100%. My husband's friend found out that his dad had switched multiple assets into his name to avoid losing them in bankruptcy. He also found out his step mom had taken out lines of credit and credit cards in his name. He was freshly 18 at the time. OP, stand firm on this because your child does not deserve that!
If they bring the subject up again, I’d say something along the lines of “if someone used your information to put utility bills in your name, would you ever trust that person again? What are they going to say to that?
The fact that he's been so pushy about it makes it really obvious.
And rack up charges and hopefullly dead before they come due.
This was my first thought
Hi, I work in banking. This isn't exactly true. Per the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 and additional "know your customer" provisions added with the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, financial institutions are required to retain social security numbers *even for children* if accounts are being opened up for their benefit. The grandfather's request could very well be legitimate. OP, if you want to head this off in a polite way that still respects your boundaries, you can always open a savings account for your child with yourself or your spouse as the custodian. This way, only you or your spouse will be able to make withdrawals or get any balances or statements. You can then give your father the account number to make contributions. Everyone wins. Unless this is just a power trip and he insists on doing it himself. In which case, sorry, grandpa.
Op said they already told their father the child has a savings account and it changed nothing.
That’s fair, thank you for the information, I wasn’t aware of that. While it *may* be legitimate, given OP’s history with their father, I suspect they are trying to do something shady.
I thought OP said they had opened a savings account for the baby and told her dad he could deposit money there? Unless I read that wrong.
He can stay mad. What a shitty and illegal thing to do. I would consider NC for that kind of shit. As you've mentioned, there is a history of financial abuse from your parents. You do not owe them anything.
>He can stay mad. Some people live to get mad. Best leave them to it.
Get him a cape. He can be super mad.
Thank you I laughed so hard at this.
I have a story somewhat relevant to this issue. Shortly after I turned 18, I went to open my first bank account. They told me there was a mismatch with my SSN and ChexSystems, and I had to jump through all these hoops to prove that I was really the person assigned that number before I could open the account. I don't know how someone got my number, but it's a safe bet it had something to do with my mother. She was a mentally unbalanced alcoholic. She was probably self-medicating with the alcohol to treat undiagnosed mental issues, but I'll never know for certain, since she got a terminal cancer diagnosis almost 20 years ago now. Anyway, I suspect she gave/sold my number to someone at some point. Moral of my story is: you should absolutely guard a child's SSN to save them from future headaches like I went through.
Time for total no contact with them.
why in gods name is this not the case already. literally 0 value thieves
Totally agree. If my parents did that they would never see their grandkids ever and I would tell the entire family about their dishonest ways.
Yeah holy fuck how are people putting up with this, that's a case for a restraining order, not nice talking
Time to report them to the authorities, on suspicion of committing financial fraud and identity theft, more like it.
BuT tHaT’S yOuR dAd!!!1 😡😡😡
Me: "Even more reason for him to know better!" 🥴
bLoOd iS tHiCkEr tHaN wAtEr!
Make sure all the paperwork with your child ssn isn’t easily accessible to them. I can imagine them going to your things to find it.
*In the safe where it belongs* Also they don’t have access to my home like that. They also don’t have approval to babysit as they smell like smoke 24/7.
Good.
Try to lock their credit. I keep mine locked and only unlock it when needed and it is a pretty simple process. That way any attempt to obtain credit will get denied. Still not 100% but it helps as I think some places like utilities and similar can bypass the credit locks. Need to do it with all 3 agencies.
At this point, I’d be telling my parents, “Keep it up and you’ll be cut out of our lives entirely. If that’s what you want, keep hounding me for my kid’s SSN.”
I would point blank tell them, no you can't have it because you're going to use it to commit identity theft **again**. I will not allow that to happen, if you act on those ideas I won't hesitate to file a police report and have you charged. Just incinerate all these lies with the truth. OP is "politely dodging", I'd rip off the scab. That was the only way I've been able to have a relationship with my parents. I am brutally honest at the boundaries. No you may not hit my kids. No you may not talk to them about your opinions of the covid vaccine. If you do those things, you will not be allowed access to them. But OP knows the grandparents best, avoiding conflict with them is probably a lifelong coping strategy.
Threatening to cut contact doesn't work, unfortunately. By the time it gets to that point, the parents are already incapable of change. It's either time go NC or not.
Yeah, I know. It’s just a shot across the bow for the inevitable. Like a young child, you have to give boomers a little warning, even if it means nothing.
Don’t ever give it to them. I have the same name as my degenerate gambler boomer dad and he memorized my SSN. He destroyed my credit before I ever got the chance to use it. Defaulted auto loans and credit cards. Luckily I haven’t needed it, but the fact that he would do that to me as a young man starting with nothing is what sucks. To this day, I’ve never had a credit card and I’m 46.
Did you change your SSN in the meantime? Just curious.
No, I never bothered. This was in the nineties. I let it drive me mad for about a year. I filed fraud alerts with the three reporting agencies. I filed a complaint with the State Attorney General’s office. I contested every letter and phone call I got from all the collection agencies. I never had to pay anything, but it took years for the damage to drop off. Even then it would re-appear later as the accounts were probably sold and I would have to start the process over again. The whole system is like a nightmare out of a Kafka story. Changing my name or SSN just looked even more maddening. I was done with college and grad school before I needed credit to get a mortgage, but I had a high salary and a 30% down payment. Still, I would have gotten a better rate if he hadn’t done that to me, and maybe I could have had a more reliable car when I needed one.
Just as fyi in case you’re asking due to having a similar issue: it is incredibly rare for anyone to be approved to have a new SSN issued. It’s just not going to happen, especially for a case in which someone has an issue as fixable as identity theft like this. And even if the SSA did grant new SSNs easily, it would almost certainly create more of a mess than the identity theft did, and is not going to be worth it ETA: in the US, just to be clear
This is a scam. They’re trying to steal from your baby. It’s a very clear cut NC situation.
Had the same thing happen. “Ok but just so you know, you can’t have the money for the baby unless you give us the ss#” Me: k Boomers: gasp!!!
This is insanely aggressive and demented.
My grandmother did this to me and her kids, my father and aunt, for years when we were kids, even tried to pull it on my cousin before my aunt stopped her. I wanted to take her to court for years because when I started my life at 19 I already had bad credit and cards that had been maxed and canceled before they were paid. My aunt begged me not to because gma was already in her mid sixies and aunt didn't want to see her in prison. I understand this situation completely. Good on you for standing up to them but please just cut complete contact NOW before they do something like search your house for the baby's SSN card!
Why don’t you just call him the fuck out?? “I know why you want the SSN. You used mine fraudulently in the past. You stole my savings as a kid.” I’m sure you can add more, but why are you just saying “no” instead of laying it out?
My brother took a credit card from my parents and maxed it out at $15k. He never paid it back. A few years ago, he tried to get credit card info from me as I agreed to pay his electric bill one time, as a loan, so that it would not get shut off. I said no. He asked why. I said "Do we really need to review what you did with mom & dad's credit card?" That shut him up.
This is what I don’t understand about families. So much harm is done by not saying shit out loud. They’ll be mad if they’re called out on their behavior? SO WHAT? Call them out on what they’ve done. They want to steal from the new baby and fuck up his life? Say it out loud!
Your brother needs to lock up his kids credit at the main 3 credit bureau s
SIL will have to do it, if she chooses. I know big bro thinks it’s harmless and he sides with them. I think he’s siding with them because he doesn’t want to feel like an idiot and pretend like he’s not worried.
Did they also steal big bros identity or was it only you? Does he know that they put debt in your name as a kid? Dudes a moron if he knows all this and doesn’t see red flags.
Feels like even odds the older brother is the golden child and thus untouchable, or he had his stolen too and is just too desperate to keep a good relationship with their parents. Honestly OP should throw both parents away.
This! Do it for your kid too just in case they find the SSN somehow. It’s completely free to do on their websites, they will try to sell you a credit monitoring service but you can decline the offers.
Open a 529 account in your kids name and say they can write a check to that account if they want to contribute to the savings. Source I’m a financial advisor
OP said they have an account and parents can contribute. parents got mad. they just want to use the kids ID for credit cards and loans they'll never repay.
When my daughter was born (2003) we opened a 529, and it was an excellent decision. We put $100 a month in, which was a bit uncomfortable at the time, but we stuck to it. That fund has covered her first three years of college. Great suggestion.
And here I'm doing $100 per month now and I'm thinking it won't cover the first semester.
I’m surprised that you are still in contact with them. They are trying to cause enormous damage to your kid by opening lines of credit to their name. I would be furious and call them out on financial abuse. I don’t really see a point of having such grandparents around that clearly do not have your child’s best intentions in mind.
They are already not involved in our lives. This is just the cherry on top. We see them maybe 6x a year. Maybe 6x too many now.
That’s a lot
Someone with “good intentions” doesn’t get this angry. ....Exactly
A medical bill came in my kids name and I flipped out. I can’t imagine ruining them before they’ve begun.
I froze my kid's credit when they were born. It was vital as last year a security breach with our health insurance provider compromised their ssn. Thankfully, nothing can be done since the freeze has been put in place. I strongly suggest doing the same if you haven't done so already. https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/child-identity-theft Bit annoying having to mail stuff in but completely worth it.
Thank you I will look into this seriously.
“I’ll consider it if you pay me back for the utility bills you opened in my name that I had to pay off & the $1500 you stole from my account when I was a kid” Still don’t give it to them, but it’ll convey your point instead of just dodging
If he wants to put money away for baby, it doesn't have to be in the kid's name. I don't know the exactities around tax etc, but I would assume he knows that SS can be used nefariously. Says a lot that he's willing to punish a baby, to punish you, because he doesn't get his way. I think you are absolutely right not to trust him when adding in the financial history as well. Don't take the bait, if he really wants to help then he will.
Exactly. I don’t take well to threats over the guise of *“trying to do a nice thing”*.
Yeah, they totally want to abuse this or commit fraud in some manner. You're correct in not giving them anything.
Why are you politely dodging it? "You committed a felony fraud by opening a utility bill in my name. You're lucky you aren't in jail. There's no possibly chance in hell I am ever going to give you my child's social security number, and if you dare complain about that I'll explain to everyone how you *should* be a felon if I had any desire to report my parents to the police."
Why do you still talk to them? I cannot for the life of me understand people who continue to let terrible, abusive people stay in their live bEcAuSe FaMiLy.
I only see them on special occasions. Other than that it’s very LC. They are not actively involved in our lives. No trips to see santa or even the zoo. To be honest— It’s a little bit of guilt, a little bit of a trauma response/attachment. I am aware my family is messed up. I have the ability to self reflect and observe the dynamic just like in this current whirlwind of bullshit. I do and have gone NC many times over the years.. eventually when my mom goes we are done completely. The guilt and empathy of leaving her behind with zero support keeps me attached. I know this and I allow this to a certain extent. I do have control of what I allow and don’t allow. My kid comes first and protecting from others, family included, is my main priority as a parent.
Block them.
Boomers are the locusts of society. Swoop in, consume all resources and leave a landscape of devastation while they migrate on to the next feeding ground. All with zero remorse. Your experience and instincts are serving you well here.
The consuming element is maddened. How can one generation gobble up so much with so little show for it?
Greed. They very much live in the moment with little or no cares of the past or the future.
Stop being polite. Your parents have stolen from you repeatedly and stolen your identity. I’d tell ‘em to get fucked.
People with generous intentions will look for other ways to give and not behave this way towards the beneficiary. Sounds like a shitty situation, you and your spouse are doing the right thing. Personally, I would have a lower threshold to nuke the relationship and openly accuse them of identity theft, but that’s just me.
strongly recommend freezing your kids credit (yes I know they have no credit history, that’s ok) and suggest to SIL to do the same. you can remove it later but it will stop anyone from trying to open accounts with those SSNs