What to do after your identity is stolen!
Once you have been the vicitim of identity theft, you need to know what steps to take to prevent further use of your information and to make sure that you are not responsible for unauthorized charges and accounts opened in your name. You will also need to have the fraudulent information removed from your credit report, so that it does not impact you when you try to open accounts in the future.
You will certainly want to file an Identity Theft Report with a law enforcement agency. This can be local or state police, or a federal agency such as the FBI. You will also want to file an official Identity Theft Complaint with the Federal Trade Commission; go to www.ftc.gov for more details. You should place a fraud alert on all three of your credit reports with the different agencies. This will alert potential creditors to take extra steps to verify your identity before they open an account in your name. Finally, you should close any accounts that have unauthorized activity or been opened in your name unknowingly. This may not always be possible and may be an inconvenience to you, but it will help prevent further disputes.
Next, you will want to contact all creditors that were affected to inform them of the fraudulent activity. This should be done as soon as possible because some accounts have different rules on how long you have to file a dispute. For example, credit cards generally give you longer to dispute charges and you are liable for a lower amount than debit cards. When contacting companies, you should include a copy of all reports you filed from above, and keep detailed records of all correspondence. In some cases, you will have difficulty getting a company to erase a fraudulent debt, so you will want to have them confirm all steps in writing.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act states that the credit bureaus have to correct fraudulent information on your report. You will need to notify the three bureaus and the creditor in writing, again providing copies of all your filed reports. There are also different agencies that you should make reports with for different types of identity theft. For example, for investment accounts you would notify the Securities and Exchange Commision (SEC), and for phone accounts, you would notify the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Each has their own internal policies and procedures on how to handle cases involving identity theft.
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