Never Say Never! Protect Yourself & Your Credit From Identity Fraud

January 13th, 2010 | by admin |

Where Identity fraud is a unlawful change of identity. It indicates illegal activities that use the identity of another person as a target of a crime. Lets make this clear that identity fraud can occur without identity theft.

Identity theft wont just ruin your day, it will take over your life! Trying to get your life back will not be a short process and the more you delay on correcting ID theft the more money you will be responsible for. This is a not-so-fun fact: The average time spent by victims resolving the problem is about 330 hours. Also that 15% of victims find out about the theft through proactive action taken by a business. There are many different kinds of identity theft types:

business/commercial identity theft (using another’s business name to obtain credit)
criminal identity theft (posing as another when apprehended for a crime)
financial identity theft (using another’s identity to obtain goods and services)
identity cloning (using another’s information to assume his or her identity in daily life)
medical identity theft (using another’s information to obtain medical care or drugs)

My goal is not to scare you but to make you aware of what is out there. If you ever see anything out of the ordinary ie. card you did not apply for etc., these are the following steps that should be taken:

1. Remember if you find out that your identity has been stolen remember to collect and keep a record of mail, phone calls, letters, dates and times. This is the only evidence that you will have to prove your case.

2. The next step is to contact one of the three big credit reporting agencies (listed below), they in turn will contact other two. If your bank account has been penetrated, then close your account immediately and contact a bank representative.

3. Notify your employer and cancel all direct deposit payments to your account. So not to loose any more money and also you may need it if your accounts are frozen. The initial phone call to close out the accounts will only get the process started, institutions want to see the evidence before totally closing out any bank or card.

4. Remember cover your back and make sure to send your information certified mail, so you have proof that they received it, as we know this companies can easily lose important documentation. This is were it can get tricky, first file a police report, so you can prove to creditors that there was a crime.

5. Then file a identity theft complaint form with the Federal Trade Commission so you can understand how you can, “deter, detect, and defend against identity theft”. Which will guarantee that credit agencies are not able to release your information with out your consent.

These steps will get started! If this seems like a lot it is, I am talking form experience. If you’ve suffered from identity theft and ruined your credit, call us for credit repair help. We are credit repair process experts!

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