Your One-Way Ticket to Jail!

According to the Federal Trade Commission, lying on a credit application and misrepresenting your Social Security number are both federal crimes. Even if you obtain a CPN from a company that looks 100 percent legit, you’re still breaking the law if you plug that into the Social Security box on a credit application. Bascially, you’re lying by omission by substituting a credit privacy number for your real information.

What’s worse, that credit privacy number you’ve paid so much money for could be stolen. Some credit repair companies are actually just recycling Social Security numbers that have been issued to other people and passing them off as credit privacy numbers to unsuspecting consumers. According to a report from the Federal Reserve, credit repair scammers will swipe Social Security numbers belonging to children, seniors and people who are incarcerated just for this purpose.

Using someone else’s Social Security number to get credit in your name is also a federal crime. Currently, the max penalty for identity theft is 15 years in prison, not to mention having to pay some substantial fines. That’s on top of any punishment you might get at the state level if you’re convicted of identity theft. When you put it in that perspective, it’s pretty easy to see why credit privacy numbers are more trouble than they’re worth.

Paying for a credit privacy number isn’t the only mistake you can make when you’re trying to undo any damage caused by bad credit. For example, there are companies out there that will tell you that replacing your Social Security number with an Employee Identification Number or EIN is an effective way to create a new credit profile. This is a nine-digit number that the IRS uses to identify businesses and people who are self-employed for tax purposes.

While you can use an EIN to establish credit in your business’s name, it’s not going to do you much good when it comes to your personal credit. Besides that, you need a Social Security number to apply for an EIN. Even if you’re trying to use it get credit for business purposes, creditors are still likely to look at your personal credit history at some point