Identity Fraud Help

Non-investing personal finance issues including insurance, credit, real estate, taxes, employment and legal issues such as trusts and wills.
Post Reply
User avatar
Topic Author
Polar_Ice
Posts: 267
Joined: Thu Sep 02, 2010 3:40 am

Identity Fraud Help

Post by Polar_Ice »

So I got a call from a major retailer's credit card division asking me if submitted an application for a new credit card. I didn't believe who they said they were so called back with the number on their website. The call was valid and they told me someone in another state had used my SSN and address on the application. She confirmed all my information was on the application. :oops: I told her it was fraud.

I immediately went online and pulled my credit report and had 6-7 hard inquires all on the same date earlier this week from various stores. I then put a 90 day fraud alert on my credit. I am wondering what would of happened if I didn't receive this call to alert me to it. :annoyed

http://www.equifax.com/answers/set-fraud-alerts/en_cp

I have always been very careful about protecting my SSN and keep asking myself how this could of happened but probably will never know. I signed up for a credit monitoring service and waiting back on a call from a fraud investigator.

Anyone been through this? Anything else I should do now? Is it possible a credit card was opened immediately after the date of the hard inquiry or would the creditor be notified about the fraud alert afterwards? How does this even work, the fraudster uses a second address to get the card and my address is their home on the application?
Rupert
Posts: 4122
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2012 12:01 pm

Re: Identity Fraud Help

Post by Rupert »

It happened to me recently. If they have your social security number, you need to place a hard freeze on your credit with each of the three credit reporting agencies. But first you should file a police report, as that will help expedite the process (and force the reporting agencies to offer freezes to you at no cost; without the police report, you must pay to freeze and subsequently unfreeze, even temporarily, your credit files). You also need to check all three of your credit reports and get any fraudulent information removed, if possible. (It's sometimes more difficult than it should be, especially when you're trying to remove information about fraudulent inquiries.)

The Federal Trade Commission website has lots of useful information. Look there, but also take it from me (as both a victim of identity theft and a criminal defense lawyer with unique access to information about these types of crimes): Once your personal information is out there, in the hands of fraudsters, it will always be out there. My personal information was found on a spread sheet in the possession of a big-time fraudster who was selling the information to others. I was contacted by the Secret Service, who informed me that there's no telling how many times it was sold. And there's also no telling how they got the information in the first place. Think about all the insurance companies, doctors, etc, etc, etc, you've done business with throughout your life who have that information on file -- often on file before identity theft became such a huge problem and when social security numbers were handed out willy nilly to just about anyone who asked for them. It could have come from just about anywhere.

Edited to note this: The credit reporting agencies and monitoring services are not going to offer to freeze your credit. You have to ask for it. And then you have to figure out what each reporting agency requires you to do in order to freeze it. For one agency at least (it may have been two, actually), I had to make the request in writing. Why? I suspect it's because there's no need for you to continue paying for their credit monitoring service if your credit files are frozen. Just fyi. This will take you many many hours to clear up. So brace yourself for that.
Post Reply