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Are you the victim of identity theft? You may be if someone has stolen any of your personal documents or vital data. This could include your birth certificate, drivers license, social security card, or credit card, among others. At first, you may not realize your private information is missing. When you receive a collection notice or have a credit card revoked, you then will be faced with the consequences of this rapidly increasing white collar crime.
The First Steps to Recovery
After your document is stolen or somehow duplicated, the thief may use personal details to create a credit record for his own use, or he may sell it to another person. That individual then can start charging all kinds of purchases using your name. If the bills are sent to his or her address and remain unpaid, the company eventually may track the account to your name, address, or contact information, and you could be held responsible for expenses you did not charge. When this happens, you naturally will do everything in your power to fight the situation. But in the meantime, you will have to keep making payments on the account that has been traced to you, and you will have to pay legal fees when hiring an attorney to clear your name.
Although the situation may feel frightening and appear to be totally out of control, there are things you can do to regain your personal identity and cooperate with bringing the perpetrator(s) to trial.
Recommended Actions:
1. Check each monthly statement for credit cards that you currently use, going back over the past three or four months. Its always a good idea to keep receipts from credit purchases and compare these to the monthly statement.
If you have not yet done this, then at least look over the monthly balance to see if it is close to what you recall spending. If there are questions or disputes, ask the company how to process a complaint so it can be handled promptly.
2. Contact each company with whom you have a credit account to find out if anyone has made inquiries about your name or account information. Let the company representative know what has happened, and ask him or her to let you know if anything odd should occur with your account. This will let the company know you are concerned about maintaining responsibility toward your account with the store, and they will be more apt to work with you if problems should turn up.
3. Request copies of your credit report from the three major credit history companies: TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. Carefully examine all three reports and compare them to each other to see if the records are accurate and consistent. They will not necessarily all have the same information, but there probably will be some overlap. If you find errors, report them right away and work with the credit-reporting agency to bring your record up to date.
Simple steps like these can put you on the path toward regaining a positive credit standing and the road to normalcy.
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Frequently Asked
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Get answers to your questions about ID theft.
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Tips on
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Identity Theft and
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