KinderCredit

My middle kid is scheduled to enter kindergarten in the fall, and I'm just finishing up copying all her identity documents for the school. Being that I have a bit of background in identity and credit, I look at her Social Security card, and wonder if she can get some credit history going by the time school starts.

I've heard the silly stories about credit card companies extending credit to little kids, so I went to CreditCard.com to get the latest student offerings. My kid has now applications in for Capital One and Citi "student" level credit cards; I tried for a Chase card, but that offer requires enrollment in a 4-year school or a 2-year technical/community college. Naturally, she couldn't complete that application on her behalf without necessarily lying on the application.

In fact, she was only able to complete applications for student cards -- my (I mean her) first attempts were stymied by the issuers' instance that applicants be 18 or older. So I don't know how these kids (and dogs) are getting cards without committing some kind of fraud along the way.

So, we'll see. Assuming the credit card applications fall through, the next step is to just get her jointly named on some card that I already have, (or even better, a joint savings/checking account), then wait around for the junk mail offers as her name and Social Security number starts churning through the credit system.

If everything works out, I'll repeat the process with my youngest kid next year. This way, by the time they're 18, they'll already have over a decade of rather perfect credit history, and might not be saddled with the horrendous student rates that plague most college freshmen.