To cut or minimize the risk of becoming a
victim of identity theft or fraud, there are some key steps you can take.
If you are a victim of identity theft, your liability for charges can build up the longer the crime goes unreported, you should not be liable for fraudulent charges, but you do need to clear your name right away.
If you find that you are a
victim of identity theft you should place a fraud alert on your credit reports immediately.
Under California law, when you provide a copy of the police report to the credit bureaus, they must take out the fraudulent accounts from your credit report. Under the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act, the Federal Trade Commission is accountable for receiving and processing complaints from persons who believe they may be victims of identity theft, providing informational materials to those people, and referring those complaints to suitable entities, including the major credit reporting agencies and law enforcement agencies.
In the United States and Canada many people have reported that unauthorized persons have taken cash out of their bank or financial accounts, or, in some cases, taken over their identities altogether, running up vast debts and committing crimes while using the victim's name. In many cases, a victim's losses may include not only out-of-pocket financial losses, but sizeable additional financial costs associated with trying to restore his/her reputation in the community and correcting erroneous information for which the criminal is to blame.
According to Identity Theft Labs, the number of Americans who have had their confidential and personal information compromised is staggering: over 217,000,000 in three years, resulting in 10 million victims every year, to avoid this happening to you get the
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Identity theft victims are entitled up to 2 additional reports for free in the year after filing an extended fraud alert. In most states, security freezes are offered at no charge to identity theft victims and for a relatively small fee for non-victims.
If your identity thief is aggressive and gives no indication of ceasing to use your identity to obtain credit, consider using the security freeze to reduce access to your credit file.
If a civil judgment is entered in your name for your imposter's actions, contact the court where the judgment was entered and report that you are a victim of identity theft. If you think you've become a victim of identity theft or fraud, act immediately to lessen the harm to your personal funds and financial accounts, as well as your reputation.
The FTC has more data on identity theft reports. Although the FTC does not itself look into identity theft cases, they share such information with investigators nationwide who are fighting identity theft.
After resolving any identity theft disputes, request that the companies send you a letter stating that they have discharged any fraudulent charges or closed disputed accounts. If an account was opened fraudulently and was identified in a police report as being fraudulent, you can provide a copy of the police report and request that Equifax or the other two nationwide consumer reporting companies prevent the reporting of the fraudulent account in your credit file.
