Identity Theft What to do

Identity theft has been around forever but in this age of information identity theft is an ever increasing problem.  Identity theft is a crime that occurs when another individual, without your knowledge, takes your personal information and uses it to commit fraud which you become liable for.  Some fraudulent activities include:

Credit Card Fraud where the thief uses your information to change the billing address and retrieve a duplicate card or a new card. The victims credit is ruined without realizing, or realizing too late, because the bills are being sent to another address.

Phone and Utilities Fraud where the thief signs up for services in the victims name and sometimes pays the bills just to establish proof of residency. 

Banking and Loan Fraud where the thief opens accounts in the victims name and makes electronic funds transfers and writes bad checks or even takes out a loan in the victims name.

Employment Fraud where the thief gets a job using the victims information and accumulates income on the victims social security number causing the IRS to audit the victim and hold him or her accountable for not reporting the income.

Tax Return Fraud where the thief uses the victims identity to file for a tax refund causing the victim to loose out on his or her own tax refund, or as stated above, not filing any taxes at all and having the reported income added to the victims accountability.

Medical Fraud where the thief uses the victims information to obtain medical treatments and claiming no insurance with a request to be billed. 

Real Estate Fraud where the thief uses the victims information to either purchase or sell, mostly sell, real property that the victim owns, but also property that victim has no idea about.   For example, here in Chicago thieves have been selling abandoned buildings using quit claim deeds to individuals looking to make a quick buck flipping the property only to come find at closing that the thief was not the legal owner and had no rights to sell the property.

Illegal Immigration Fraud where the thieves obtain the victims information to establish residency in this country. It’s been recently documented that prisoners, who have long term sentences, sell their identity information to make it easy for illegal immigrants to assume their social security numbers.

If you suspect your identity has been stolen or tampered with then it is up to you to take action.  Nobody will do it for you unless you are signed up with a service that monitors your credit and provides monetary restitution if you incur financial damages while using a service like LifeLock (A link to their service is under the picture to the right) 

The first thing you should do is contact the 3 major credit bureaus and place a “fraud alert” on your file. This will place a security freeze on your credit files and prevent credit issuers from accessing and thereby issuing new credit. Also you can request a free copy of your credit reports so that you can monitor them. You can still get a free copy of your credit reports even if you haven’t suffered identity theft by going to annualcreditreports.com.

The next thing you should do is make a report with your local police or sheriff’s department and give them as much documentation as possible for evidence of the crime. Also make sure that the police reports list the amounts that have been fraudulently charged against you.

Next, when you receive your credit reports, normally you can get them instantly online, review your creditors. If you come across a creditor that you know is not yours, notify the credit bureaus that are listing them, then contact the creditors themselves and report the fraudulent activity. They will want you to fill out a fraud affidavit and have it notarized. You will need this along with the police report and a government issued id to get a copy of the documents used to establish credit in your name. Law enforcement authorities will use this documentation to try and track down the thief.

The next thing you will want to do is contact all of your legitimate creditors and request new replacement cards along with new account numbers. You will likely be asked to furnish copies of the fraud affidavit as well. And if debt collectors are calling on fraudulent transactions you need to let them know as well that there has been fraud committed and request the contact information of the creditors so you can contact them as well.

You will have to do the same thing with your bank, brokerage firms, and your cell phone and utility companies. And in each case you will probably need to furnish a copy of the fraud affidavit so make sure you run off plenty of copies. In the case of your bank you will need to request new replacement ATM or Debit Cards with new account numbers, and the same with any online banking that you do such as Paypal.

Some other places you should contact include the Social Security Administration, The U.S. Department of State Passport Services, The U.S. Department of Education (for student loan fraud), and your state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. You can find links to these agencies on the right.