Parents urged to monitor their children's credit reports

The Better Business Bureau and FBI are warning consumers to beware of scammers trying to sell them "credit privacy numbers" to help boost their credit scores.

These digits could actually be Social Security numbers belonging to children. FBI officials have been looking into the problem, which they discovered during their investigation of the mortgage fraud crisis. They say thieves are obtaining the numbers using computers to find those that are dormant.

"People can use them to establish fake credit and then run up that credit [line]," Chris Thetford, a spokesman for the BBB in St. Louis told Consumer Ally.