Parents are stealing their children's identities to access debt—and destroying their kids' credit scores in the process
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![Parents are stealing their children's identities to access debt—and destroying their kids' credit scores in the process](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/0e510117-b942-49b8-8c48-f95d4ab495ed.jpeg?format=jpg&thumbnail=256)
fortune.com
When Axton Betz-Hamilton set up her first utility bill at college, she soon realized something was very, very wrong.
It turned out she’d been a victim of identity theft—and it had destroyed her credit rating.
In 2001, when she was a 19-year-old student, Betz-Hamilton’s new utility provider demanded a $100 security deposit to turn on her service, citing her credit score.
“I thought it was because I didn’t have enough credit,” she told Fortune. But when a copy of her credit report turned up in her mailbox six weeks later, she learned the opposite was true.
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How the fuck? That sounds illegal. How can you be held liable for others people bullshit?
Because it's a hell of a lot easier to hold poor people liable for other people's bullshit than it is to hold rich people liable for not honoring fraud reports. One can afford a lawyer, and knows the other can't.
Because credit agencies aren't related to the government. They're literally just companies that made up arbitrary systems and convinced banks to go along with it