Identity Theft Articles

From the day you are eligible to own your first credit card, credit referencing agencies such as Experian and Trans Union start to collect information on your financial history. This information goes into making your personal credit report and is used to determine your credit score. Banks use this information to help them decide which banking products, such as loans and credit cards, will be suitable for you.

The Difference Between a Credit Score and a Credit Report

Your credit score is a number between 300 (poor) and 900 (excellent) used by banks to determine which of their products you are eligible for. This number is also called a FICO score after Fair Isaac & Co. who developed the first scoring systems in the 1950s. A credit report is far more detailed and contains information about your financial activities from around the age of eighteen. Your financial report is used by banks to determine your credit score.

What Exactly Goes into my Credit Report?

It contains detailed information about your current credit status and previous financial history. Things that will be included are:

• Any information you volunteer when filling out credit application forms, such as your current address, marital status and earnings
• Previous loans and credit history
• Your banking patterns and general financial management, known as ‘white data’
• Defaults, bankruptcies and late payments, known as ‘black data’, including court rulings on debt matters
• Criminal convictions (in the US but not the UK)
• Publicly available data such as your electoral information

Certain things should not be included in, or effect, your credit report:

• Your medical records
• Your family’s financial history
• Fines that did not result in court action

Who can Access my Credit Report?

Any business with a legitimate business interest can request to see your credit report. If a business could possibly incur a lose through a default on payments or a bankruptcy declaration, it is in their interest to check your previous credit history by requesting to see your credit report. Some examples of eligible businesses would be:

• Landlords and Rental Agencies
• Banks
• Insurance Companies
• Car Credit or Sales Agents
• Lenders
• Real Estate Companies

In addition, it can be accessed by potential employers with written consent from you. Also government bodies may check if you are applying for various licenses or benefits.

How can you access this information? Under the 2003 Fair Credit Reporting Act every US citizen is entitled to one free copy of their credit report every twelve months. You can obtain this by writing to any of the credit referencing agencies: Experian, Equifax and Trans Union and requesting it. It is not entirely free however, as they are entitled to charge an administration fee of $10.

In the UK you may request a copy of either your credit score or credit report at any time under the 1974 Consumer Credit Act. The British referencing agencies are: Experian, Equifax and Callcredit and the administration fee is £2.

Checking your Report Details and Reporting Mistakes

It is worth checking your credit report details on a regular basis. Millions of people’s records are amended and processed every year so mistakes are bound to occur and these mistakes can have serious knock-out effects for your credit rating. If you spot any errors either in your personal or financial history you need to send corrections in writing to the credit agency that issues the report.

Credit agencies have 30 days in which to investigate your claim. If you have not heard from them in this time, give them a call to ask what has happened. When they make the changes they should send you a new copy of your report. Always double-check that the changes are correct.

Today most consumers can get credit within half an hour after going into a store. All that they need to know is personal information about themselves and their credit report. Such credit system allows consumers to spend carelessly without having the hassle of waiting to get credit Such spending is partially responsible for the high rate of personal bankruptcies filed during recent years. However, there are also other side effects that come with such credit systems.

What is going to stop someone from stealing your identity and getting credit on your name? All that the thief needs is to know some personal information about a consumer, which is not that hard to find for an experience identity-thief. One of the ways that the consumer might find out about fraudulent credit being taken under his name is by checking his credit report; to see if any of the credits are not his. A consumer can check his credit report once a year for free on annual credit report.

Seeing any credit that does not belong to the consumer should alert him for further investigation. The creditors that are shown on the report should be contacted immediately, after which credit agencies should be notified of the fraudulent transaction. So how does the overall market system approach this problem? They just deal with the symptoms. They accept the fraudulent credit reports as glitches in the system, but resist taking any permanent solutions. The explanation for such ignorant approach might be explained by the theory that protecting consumers from identity theft will slow down the economy. The identity check at the credit station is going to become more scrutinized, making it harder to get credit and harder to buy. All of this means less spending, less profits and slowdown in the economy; something that the credit companies are not willing to accept.

Identity theft is an ever increasing problem in our modern society. So much information is readily available and only too easy for unscrupulous people to obtain. Identity theft sometimes be a relatively minor hassle, like some opening a cell phone account in your name and running up a bill until the collection agency starts calling you about it. But it can also be a completely devastating, life altering event. Costing thousands of dollars to repair the damage not to mention the stress and emotional suffering caused by someone wiping out your bank account and racking up thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt that happens to be in your name.

The best way to stop identity theft is to prevent it from happening in the first place. But what can you do if you’ve already been the victim of identity theft? The first thing to do is to file a police report. By filing a police report you’re starting a paper trail of your efforts to fix the problem and that is important because when you’re trying to apply for new credit or loans etc. you will want proof that all of the overdue bills and accounts in collection do not belong to you and that you are doing everything you can to fix the problem.

If your credit cards or card numbers have been stolen or misused you can call your credit card company to notify them of the fraudulent activity and they will reverse the charges and send you an affidavit of fraud that you must fill out, sign, and return. This also becomes part of the paper trail or proof that you’re not responsible for the fraudulent activity and shows your identity theft repair efforts.

For some of the more serious cases of identity theft, like someone draining your bank account or taking out huge loans in your name, you will definitely want to get the police involved immediately and I would recommend that you find an attorney with experience in whatever issue you happen to be dealing with. There are a lot of things that you can handle on your own but for some of the more serious cases you will certainly require the help of qualified professionals.

More and more people are being victimized by these devious criminals. Prevention is the best way to stop these unsavory characters from stealing from you so I urge you to do some more research on prevention. Like most everything in nature, a thief will generally choose the path of least resistance. So if you can make yourself difficult to steal from, thieves will usually move on to easier prey.

If you are the victim of identify theft you need to take immediate action to minimize liability and further damage. Here’s what to do - and who to contact - if your personal information has been stolen.

If you report an identity theft within two days Visa, Mastercard and some bank-issued credit and ATM cards may limit your liability to $50. If you report within 60 days, your losses may be limited to $500. Don’t wait longer or you may be responsible for your entire loss.

Cancel your cards and ask that accounts be marked ‘closed at consumer’s request’. Do not pay excess charges, and request written confirmation once issues are resolved. Choose new and unique passwords for your new cards.

The major credit-reporting agencies - Equifax, Experian and TransUnion - have departments dedicated to addressing fraud. If you contact one all of them should be alerted, but try to contact them individually. Ask them to issue a fraud alert to prevent damage to your credit rating. There are two types of fraud alerts: initial alerts, which remain on your credit report for 90 days, and extended alerts, which remain for seven years. To request an extended alert you will need to provide an identity theft report.

Once you have filed a fraud alert you may access your credit report. Review this for discrepancies. Unfortunately, credit agencies are not legally bound to observe fraud alerts.

Contact your local police department, and the department where the theft occurred, to file a report.

If you are contacted by a debt-collection agency, inform them of the theft. Request contact information for the creditor that hired them and contact them directly.

If your social security number has been misused, contact the Social Security Administration. Before you decide to change your social security number, remember that it will be difficult to separate your identity from the originally issued number.

If cheques have been stolen inform your bank, close your account and contact the major check-verification firms (Certegy at 1-800-437-5120 and Telecheck at 1-800-710-9898). You should also contact SCAN, a national database that tracks bad cheques, at 1-800-296-0170. Finally, call Chex Systems at 1-800-428-9623 for a copy of your consumer report, which lists accounts opened in your name.

If you have a landline, contact your telephone company. Provide a password, and instruct the company not to change your service without it. Do the same at your state’s Public Utility Commission.

If you have a cell phone, call your service provider as well as the Federal Communications Commission at 1-888-CALLFCC.

Identity thieves may change your address to facilitate the delivery of fraudulently purchased merchandise. If you suspect this, notify your postal inspector through your local post office.

If you think that a driver’s license has been established in your name, contact your state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.

To determine if a passport has been created in your name, contact the U.S. Department of State Passport Services Office at Consular Lost/Stolen Passport Section, 1111-19th Street, NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20036. Their phone number is (202)955-0430.

If bankruptcy has been filed in your name contact the U.S. Trustee at the Department of Justice in the region where the bankruptcy was filed. You may require an attorney to navigate your recovery from false bankruptcy.

If tax fraud has been committed in your name, contact the IRS at 1-877-777-4778.

If criminal violations have occurred in your name, your Attorney General can provide information to help you clear your name.

Reclaiming your identity can be time-consuming and expensive. Remain vigilant even after issues have been resolved this includes business identity theft. Request copies of your credit report regularly and review them carefully. Making an aggressive effort to protect yourself is far easier than recovering from the theft of your identity.

ID theft victim?

If you are a victim of ID theft, it it imperative that you call the 3 credit bureaus immediately to place a fraud alert on your file through this number: 1-800-680-7289

Once you have called, you will need a real police report (not the online version as Experian will not accept this) Bring your credit reports with you and insist on a MISC ITEMS report if they give you a difficult time.

On the www.ftc.gov website you can download and print the ID Theft affidavits, which you will need to have notarized. Include a copy of your credit reports and 2 forms of ID, one with photo, and the police report. Also include a cover letter explaining your situation.Send to each bureau separately via certified return receipt mail(Attn: Fraud Dept).

Experian
701 Experian Parkway
Allen, TX 75013

Equifax
1550 Peachtree Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30309

Transunion
2 Baldwin Place
Chester, PA 19022

Make sure you keep a copy of everything in your files. They have 30 days to respond and should block your accounts. Once you get your reports, review that all information is corrected. If not, resend with a new letter and circle the items still appearing on your reports and request a re-investigation immediately. On items not corrected, you may also send a copy of the police report and theft affidavit to each company directly. Be sure to reference the account number on your report.

You can also put a security freeze on your reports with the bureaus.