How to recognize and avoid Credit Fraud Credit Fraud
What Should Be Done?
One of the most severe problems during the last few years is represented by credit fraud, a phenomenon that caused more and more financial losses than ever before. Considering that almost everybody uses credit methods, it is not hard to understand why many such negative events occur. However, as the problem’s severity is constantly increasing, so is the interest that specialists – as well as common people – give to this issue.
As with any other problematic aspect in our lives, preventing credit fraud is easier and preferable to waiting for it to happen or not, so protection becomes a major concern. This crime is strongly connected to identity theft, as knowing and controlling personal information are the main techniques that lead criminals to credit fraud. One of the elements that you can use to prevent this is to constantly be aware of your personal credit. Two useful online sources that you can use for this process are FreeCreditReport.com and Life Lock, and both allow users to find complete information about their credit at any time they need to.
Sometimes, even when people try to protect themselves, credit fraud occurs. In this situation, there are some simple steps that people should do as soon as they find out about what has happened. First of all, reporting the credit fraud to police is the most important thing you can do. However, this is not enough, as police cannot always take care of the problem in a timely manner, considering the high difficulties of searching for such criminals.
Therefore, if you become a victim of credit fraud, it is also essential to let the financial institutions know about the event. Every institution that has contact with your credit should learn about what happened as soon as possible. It is also important for you to freeze your accounts so that the criminals can no longer use your money. If you follow this guidance, credit fraud has fewer chances to cause you a big problem.
FILE A POLICE REPORT. This is the needed first step to get the ball rolling. You will need the police report number. Also go out and purchase a journal to keep all notes in. Write down EVERYTHING YOU DO. This will help when speaking to other companies and keep the facts straight. A good record of everyone you talk to and what they said to you is important.
1. Place a fraud alert on your credit reports, and review your credit reports.
Fraud alerts can help prevent an identity thief from opening any more accounts in your name. Contact the toll-free fraud number of any of the three consumer reporting companies below to place a fraud alert on your credit report. CALL ALL THREE COMPMAINES. They are supposed to share information like this when you report fraud but seldom does it really work. Save yourself time and money and contact them all.
TransUnion:  1-800-680-7289; www.transunion.com; Fraud Victim Assistance Division, P.O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790
Equifax: 1-800-525-6285; www.equifax.com; P.O. Box 740241, Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
Experian: 1-888-EXPERIAN (397-3742); www.experian.com; P.O. Box 9532, Allen, TX 75013
You can get a free copy of your credit report once every year or if you are a victom of Identity theft you can get a free report as well. Go to all three reporting companies and pull your credit report. When you correct your credit report, use an Identity Theft Report with a cover letter explaining your request, to get the fastest and most complete results.Always follow up if you do not hear back in 30 days.
Another MUST DO step is to contact each and every company that was not opended by you. Ask to speak to the fraud department. Ensure you write down the day and time you called in your journal as well as the name or ID number of the person you are speaking to. Provide them with the police report number even if they do not want it. Explain the situation and let them know your identity was stolen and you did not athoize the account to be open in your name. Tell them you have reported this insident to the police and credit burua and that they should expect a letter from the credit bureo and a certifed letter from you with a copy of the police report and any other supporting documents. Ensure they close or freeze the account. You will then need to send them that certified letter explaining the situation again and with any supporting documents and account numbers you have. In the letter request to be contected by them to verify they have gotten the needed information.
They key to all of this is to take a very proactive role. If you sit back and wait for others to help you out then you will be waiting a LONG TIME.
It is recommened that you file a complaint with the FTC using the online complaint form; or call the FTC's Identity Theft Hotline, toll-free: 1-877-ID-THEFT (438-4338); TTY: 1-866-653-4261; or write Identity Theft Clearinghouse, Federal Trade Commission, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20580. Be sure to call the Hotline to update your complaint if you have any additional information or problems.
Now you should consider getting Identity theft protection and credit monetering or at the very least freeze your credit. While nothing can fully protect your identity from getting stolen you can take precautions to help protect yourself. Lifelock is one of our favorite companies for obvious reasons. Learn more about them here.
Where to Get Your Free Credit Report:
Banks are the most important elements of the financial system that characterizes the present society. Everything is spinning around them and other similar institutions when it comes to the transactions that take place daily. As individuals, their importance for us grows when we plan to purchase something very expensive because we can only do that if banks grant us credit. However, not everybody is considered to be suitable for credits by the banks so they need to evaluate people one way or another. In order to do so, banks use credit reports which contain all the information from the last four years about people’s credit accounts.
Depending on these reports, each person has a specific credit score that should be as high as possible in order for a person to have better chances to get credits and beneficial financing conditions. The reports are realized by various credit bureaus and the banks use more reports of the same client in order to consider the medium credit score. Knowing your credit score is very important when you plan to apply for credit at banks so you need to know where to get your free credit report from.
In the USA, there are three agencies that deal with credit reports: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. These are the main institutions that offer banks the required information about clients. However, according to the federal laws, this information has to be available for the consumers as well, so www.annualcreditreport.com was created. The website offers clients one free credit report every year, bringing many advantages, the main one being the fact that it helps in the case of scams and frauds.
As you can see, when it comes to where to get your free credit report from, www.annualcreditreport.com is the solution. However, you should also know that if you already got your free report for a year and you need an updated version in a few months, there are other solutions as well. Besides the three credit bureaus mentioned above, there are also other companies, such as Freecreditreport.com and Lifelock.com, which can offer clients their credit reports.
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