Identity theft victim resources

Notify credit bureaus and set fraud alerts – The very first thing to do when you find out you’re a victim of identity theft is to notify the three credit reporting agencies — Experian, Equifax and Transunion.
You must clearly communicate that recent charges or debts incurred under your name were the activity of an identity thief and not you. Further you must request they set “fraud alerts” on your file. When you set fraud alerts this will flag any creditor trying to approve credit under your name and social security number to call and verfiy your identity before extending that credit. You will also be eligible to receive a free copy of your credit report from each credit bureau.

Warning! If you call Experian you may be pitched their “free” credit monitoring service, which is actually free for 30 days, often when you’re busy trying to resolve your identity theft problem you’ll forget to cancel before the 30 days and then they’ll begin billing you monthly. We have no information at this time on the effectiveness or integrity of their credit monitoring service therefore can not provide a critique on it for now.

Set a security credit freeze on your credit – You also have the option to enable a “credit freeze” on your credit file with the credit reporting agencies. If the identity thief refuses to stop using your information and you would rather not have your credit available for anything and want to stop all activity on your credit then this is a great way to do it.
In most cases you will not be charged for a credit freeze especially if you are a victim of identity theft.

Non-victims also have the option to enable credit freezes, however there are state restrictions that may prevent non-victims from doing this free of charge and some states do not allow non-victims to set a credit freeze on their files. You can view the state by state information on security freezes on the consumerunion.org site.

File a police report – You must report the identity theft incident to your local police or sheriff’s department immediately. Provide as much detail and proof as possible when you file this report. You must also make sure that the report lists the credit account numbers involved, whether existing or new. If your fraud incident involves your medical benefits, list as much detail as you can and include the hospitals or medical facilities that rendered the service under your name. If the incident happened in another city or town other than your own, you may need to contact the police or sheriff’s office in those cities and start an incident report there as well.

The police report you fill out will be needed by your creditors so they can begin their investigations. You should keep handy and provide the name and number of the investigating officer that took your report. If your case involves mail fraud, contact your local US Postal Service office and find out who can help you. If your case involves the use of your driver’s license, the you need to contact your local DMV and get a report from them as well. For more details on identity theft reports visit the FCT.org site.

Fill out an identity theft affidavit form – Another important step in the process of reporting identity theft is to fill out the Identity Theft Affidavit form. This form will assist identity theft victims to begin the process and restore their names. When you fill out the affidavit you can use the same form to report the same information to several companies and organizations that require the information you need to provide. So this form will you standardize the information, helping you provide great detail about the incident without having to fill out separate forms.

Compromised new credit account or existing accounts – If your credit report shows that the identity thief has opened new accounts under your name then you must contact the creditor(s) that issued the account by telephone and writing. The FCRA allows identity theft victims to prevent businesses and creditors from reporting fraudulent activities to the credit bureaus.

If you are asked to fill out any form they provide, make sure you provide the identity theft affidavit, which most creditors will accept. You’re not required to notarize the affidavit, however if the creditor requires verification of your signature or witnesses, notarizing your report would certainly help.

If it’s one of your existing accounts that has been used, also call and write to your credit provider immediately. You must also request replacement cards with new account numbers. You will more than likely be asked again to fill out forms required by the creditor, in which case you must provide the identity the affidavit form you filled out earlier and once you obtain a police report on the activity also provide a copy of that report to the creditor.

How to deal with collections demands – First thing you must do before you even call or write to a collections agency is to make sure you have a police report and an identity theft affidavit form ready. Collections agencies are not in the business of resolving identity fraud cases, they’re only there to collect and are in most cases aggressive about their approaches. They are however required to deal with fraudulent cases accordingly and if you have the correct items in place they must listen.

First of all “DO NOT PAY ANY AMOUNT OF MONEY“, doing so will put responsibility of the debt on you and if you try to resolve the case while paying the debt no one will help you.

Second, contact the collections agency and ask to talk to their fraud department, tell them that you are an identity theft victim and you have a police report and identity theft affidavit to submit. You are not going to “DISPUTE” the collections debt, what you are trying to do is get an address where you can send your police report. If you tell them you’re disputing the debt or collections bill then it will not be treated as fraud.

When you send your paperwork in, send it via certified mail with return receipt. Never fax it or scan it to email to someone there. You need to have proof that the letter was received. Once you have completed these steps, the collections agency should stop all attempts to collect any debt, they also can not sell or trade the debt to another agency for 30 days.

How to deal with criminal identity theft – Cases in which your identity is involved in crime or arrest are typically very difficult to resolve. However if you take the steps listed here you should be able to begin the resolution process fairly quickly.

First, contact the law enforcement agency or department that issued the arrest warrant or made the arrest. Explain that this is a case of mis-identification and that someone is using your identity. Insist you are the victim of identity theft.

Next, you’ll need to file an impersonation/identity theft police report with your local police or sheriff’s department. Ask that you get a full set of fingerprints taken along with your picture and your photo ID. All this information must be submitted to the arresting law department to compare your information with what they have on record. Once your innocence is established insist on a letter of clearance from the arresting law agency. This is called a Factual Finding of Innocence.

You must also contact all information brokers that may have obtained your criminal records and send them copies of your letter of clearance to your name can be cleard of any charges. You must also clear any other agencies or courts that were involved and make sure they get a copy of that letter so they can clear their records of your criminal entry.

Keep fighting and don’t give in – Many of the creditors and collections agencies will try and coerce you into paying for the debt that incurred under your name. Never pay any fraudulent debt, again this will make it your responsibility. If need be seek legal help if the situation proves to be more difficult to handle alone. You should be cooperative in the sense that you are willing to resolve the debt charges but not by paying for them, instead you need to concentrate your efforts on proving your innocence.

Finally, consider protecting yourself with identity theft protection services from one of the services reviewed here. One of the biggest benefits of doing so is that if this were to happen again you’ll be protected financially by the insurance policy that all subscribers get and you can get assistance from id theft specialists to help you resolve your situation quicker.