Identity Theft Articles

Imagine this for a minute…..

Your young child is just playing and enjoying his or her day. They are young and they are very innocent. Someone miles away gets a hold of their social security number and decides to steal their identity. Your child’s identity has been stolen.

Of course, you have no idea that it has happened. Now your child grows up and gets accepted to a great University. They go down to the local car dealership to purchase their first car and they find out that they are already over $100,000 in debt and their credit has be destroyed.

They wonder how this could have possibly happened since they just now turned 18 and have never had a credit card or taken out a loan. They end up having to buy a used car for cash and you have to go to work to get all these false debts cleared and off their credit.

Now they have no credit to buy a home with or a new car and they have the stress of knowing they are further in debt than the average household in America. They are driving along at college and they get pulled over for speeding.

You get a call in the middle of the night from your child and they are in jail. You cannot figure out why they are in jail when all they got pulled over for was speeding. They tell you that they had multiple warrants out for their arrest for fraud, impersonation, and a number of other things.

Could this all happen? It can and it has. Plus the person that steals your child’s identity could possibly get away with it and never get caught. This happens on a regular basis and you need to protect your child’s identity from being stolen.

You’ve always paid your credit card bills before they were due. Your rates on the few cards that you have are low as you’ve always been responsible for your actions etc.

Recently you’ve noticed that a few strange things have been going on and you’re wondering if you’ve been an identity theft victim. You’ve been receiving some phone calls from debt collectors, a credit card has arrived in the mail that you didn’t request or maybe you’ve even been turned down for a revolving charge card because you didn’t make payments on something else.

These things may be pointing to the fact that you’ve become a victim of identity theft. If you think this may have happened, there are a couple of things that you need to do right away, such as notifying fraud departments, check your credit report and definitely report your situation to the police.

Report the Problem to Fraud Departments

If you’ve become an identity theft victim, the first thing you need to do is report it to the fraud department of the three credit bureaus. They are Experian, Equifax and Transunion. You can choose to report just to one of the bureaus as they will pass it on to the others so that they are all aware.

As soon as the credit bureau is notified of the identification theft, they will flag the accounts of the person. When accounts are flagged, the potential creditors will have to call the person applying for credit personally.

If you’ve reported your identity theft, as a victim you can expect your personal account to be flagged for 90 days. After the flagging you will be notified that this has been done and given a list of other rights for victims.

After you’ve received this information you can obtain a free copy of your credit report. It’s also strongly advised that you make a formal request to the three credit bureaus that your account be flagged form the usual 90 days to 7 years.

Check over your credit report closely to look for items that seem out of place. If you find questionable entries you should inform the credit bureaus of them. After reporting the fraudulent activity, the credit bureau is under no obligation to reveal it to others who are authorized to look at your personal credit report.