Heres what to do (ASAP) if youre a victim of identity theft: 1. File a police report immediately, noting how you first noticed fraud on your account, and any amounts/vendors involved. Dont expect investigation, but youll need a police report # for any disputes. Start keeping detailed notes of each phone call you place to and from police, credit companies, creditors, etc. They are extremely understaffed and swamped; any updates to your report will need to be faxed, but always get a contact to follow up on that confirmation. Get a physical copy of your police report (some disputes/affidavits require one). You are entitled to a free report, so make sure you get instructions on how to obtain one. 2. Get a credit monitoring service (monthly fee; I have one from Wells Fargo). This gives you the best visibility of current and potential inquiries from fraudulent credit applications with any of the major creditors and alerts you as soon as they happen. The service also lets you see your unofficial credit report/score. Also, get a personal banker--some give great advice and walk you through the steps. 3. Call EACH of the three major creditors (Experian, Equifax, Transunion) to a) obtain an official credit report (one free report if youre a victim/year/creditor on top of the free annual report), b) let them know you are a victim of identity theft, and c) dispute each individual credit inquiry to have them removed from your report. Credit monitoring services give you phone numbers to access these creditors directly (for the most part), which is 1000% less stressful than the phone-menu numbers available to the public. **If anyone assures you that one creditor will communicate your disputes with the other two, dont expect that to happen and follow up with each one. Expect to be on the phone for a while. 4. Change all of your logins, passwords, and email accounts associated with your financial accounts. Let your bank(s) know of your identity situation and have them replace any bank accounts, credit cards, and debit cards to prevent potential fraud on those. Dont wait. 5. Call each credit company who ran an inquiry on your account and dispute it/ask it to be removed from your credit report. If the fraudulent application received credit, this will alert the credit company to cancel that account, mark it as fraud, and exempt you from paying any charges incurred. If the rep cant find the application that started your credit inquiry (since you wont have all the information used on it), keep pressing and dont take I cant find it for an answer. 6. Put a credit FREEZE on each of your accounts. Establish with the creditor that you are a victim of identity theft and you get this lifetime service for free. Although you are advised to ask each creditor to red flag your account and put a note to call you in case of potentially fraudulent inquiries, most credit companies ignore this, and is ultimately a useless comfort feature. Freezing your account, though it seems extreme, will ensure that no further credit inquiries go through and give you piece of mind for any potential charges on your account. If you need your credit checked for a new living situation, car, etc., they mail you instructions on how to deactivate the freeze for a small window of time. Freezes are completely reversible should you choose to do so. 7. Going forward, be diligent about noticing any changes in your credit score/report, because once someone has your information, you cant predict on how they might use it. Wamp wamp wamp. 8. Lots of ice cream and a trip to the zoo, because you deserve it. It was an annoying process with a lot of bad advice along the way, but I learned, and hopefully these tips can help anyone going through a similar situation. If anyone has any questions on the subject, please let me know!
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 06:55:08 +0000
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