What To Do If Your Identity Is
Stolen
Four Steps To Recover from Identity
Theft
Featured Writer: Barbara Woodcox
-
Get a copy of your credit report
and gather evidence that your identity has been stolen. Then
file a police report that includes all of this documentation.
This is a strong measure of protection and will help you
resolve issues with bill collectors, creditors and consumer
reporting agencies. Once they receive a copy of the identity
theft police report the consumer reporting agencies will be
required to stop reporting the fraudulent activity on your
credit report.
-
Contact your financial
institutions and credit card companies. Get new account
numbers, passwords and PIN's for the accounts you
opened. Close the fraudulent accounts opened by the
identity thief. Also, tell your bank and credit card
companies to call you before authorizing any changes
or transactions on your accounts.
-
Contact the 3 major
credit bureaus and ask them to
place a fraud alert on your credit report
so the identity thief can't open new accounts in your
name.
-
Get a copy of your credit report and
dispute all fraudulent activity with the creditors and consumer reporting
agencies. The identity theft police report described above will help
with this process.
As you follow the 4 steps outlined
above, document all correspondence and conversations. Keep a
record of names, dates and everything that was said.
Save all written communications. Setting up a file folder will
make this easier.
|
|
