What should you do if you think your identity has been stolen or if you know it has? Identity thieves don't cause the chaos, but they have to clean it up in the end. No one but the person whose credit was ruined by an ID thief can do it.
New programmes can help people whose identities have been stolen start the long process of proving to creditors, collection agencies, and police that they are who they say they are. It is up to the person whose identity has been stolen to prove that it has been.
The first step is to go to the police station where the crime happened and tell them what happened. Make sure that all cases of fraud are listed in the police report. Give as much information as you can that can be proven. Get a copy of the report and send it to the creditors and credit-reporting agencies as proof of the crime. Keep your police investigator's phone number handy.
There are three types of identity theft:
Theft of your financial identity:
This happens most often when a person's name and Social Security number (SSN) are used to open a new line of credit.
Identity theft by criminals:
When someone "borrows" the information of a minor to get a driver's licence, this is what happens. This person could be an illegal immigrant who bought the information or a family member whose licence has been suspended or taken away.
Cloning an identity:
Most of the time, people who do profiling have "friends" in positions where they can get information about minors and sell it on the black market. Most of the people who buy this information are illegal immigrants or people trying to "start over" and avoid getting caught. It also gives terrorists a way in.
Standardized fraud declaration reports can be gotten from the Federal Trade Commission and sent to banks and creditors by people who have been scammed. Instead of filling out a different fraud packet for each creditor, a victim should fill out a single fraud declaration and send signed copies to each creditor.
When a new account has been opened in the victim's name, the ID Theft Affidavit is a huge help. The FTC tells people who have been scammed to check with each of their creditors to make sure they will accept this form. Most companies do, but some will want more or different forms.
This plan could save people a lot of time and a lot of trouble. When a consumer has a problem with something on their credit report, the credit agency will contact the creditor and tell them about the problem. The creditor then looks at its own records to make sure the information it gave the credit agency is correct.
If the creditor confirms that the information it gave is correct, the information stays on the consumer's credit report.
The fraud alert process has been changed by the three credit reporting agencies in the U.S. When a victim of ID theft calls one of the three credit reporting agencies—Trans Union, Equifax, or Experian—that agency will tell the other two. A fraud alert will be put on the victim's credit report at each agency within 24 hours of calling the toll-free number.
Also, the victim will automatically be removed from pre-approved offers of credit and insurance for two years, and if they ask, each agency will send them a free copy of their credit report within three business days.
With a fraud alert, creditors must contact the victim before giving them any new credit. The point of these alerts is to stop a thief from applying for more credit in a victim's name and getting it.
When thieves strike, you can act quickly by making just one call. No more trying to figure out how to report fraud through the different voice mail systems of the three major credit agencies. You don't have to wait weeks to get your credit report anymore.
Identity theft victims are told to talk to their creditors on their own because credit agencies send creditors a lot of customer complaints every month. You don't want your urgent report of ID theft to get lost in a pile of other complaints.
The best way for fraud victims to stand out among all these lawsuits is to talk to creditors one by one. There is no way to "make" a creditor or collection agency believe a person who has had their identity stolen.
There also seems to be no way to make creditors pay attention to the fraud alerts that victims put on their credit reports. A fraud alert is supposed to stop a creditor from giving an imposter more credit.
An alert is only helpful if a creditor takes the time to read it. This doesn't always happen, and some lenders give credit to people without even looking at their credit report.
So, people whose identities have been stolen have to check their credit reports and dispute wrong information long after they realise it. It looks like the only way for their credit reports to stay clean. If your ID is stolen, the only thing you can do is try to control and limit the damage.
