Identity Theft

What do you do if you think your identity has been stolen?

I read Connie Devine’s piece on Identity Theft And Our Apparent Inability To Stop It just after I finished penning my piece on paper shredding. While I never thought all that much about it before, I began to accept that identity theft is a big, scary issue. This led me to search for information on what to do in the case of identity theft. It didn’t take long to come up with the official FTC site, “Your National Resource for ID Theft.”

The FTC suggest four steps if you believe that you are a victim of identity theft:

1. Contact the fraud departments of any one of the three major credit bureaus to place a fraud alert on your credit file. The fraud alert requests creditors to contact you before opening any new accounts or making any changes to your existing accounts. As soon as the credit bureau confirms your fraud alert, the other two credit bureaus will be automatically notified to place fraud alerts, and all three credit reports will be sent to you free of charge.
2. Close the accounts that you know or believe have been tampered with or opened fraudulently. Use the ID Theft Affidavit when disputing new unauthorized accounts.
3. File a police report. Get a copy of the report to submit to your creditors and others that may require proof of the crime.
4. File your complaint with the FTC. The FTC maintains a database of identity theft cases used by law enforcement agencies for investigations. Filing a complaint also helps us learn more about identity theft and the problems victims are having so that we can better assist you.

How big an issue is identity theft, you ask? The FTC’s National and State Trends in Fraud & Identity Theft report reveals that the FTC’s complaint database logged more than 635,000 consumer fraud and identity theft complaints in 2004.

Scary stuff, indeed …