There are thousands of articles available to provide advice on how to prevent your financial information or identity from being stolen. Some of these are common sense items, such as protecting the keyboard when entering sensitive data at a pay phone or ATM. Others require a bit of technical knowledge, like verifying that your online purchase is secure, never allowing online merchants to store your credit card information, and never using online passwords that are easy to guess or that you use for other things. . All of this is great advice. But how do you know you’ve been a victim? And once you establish that it has been, what steps should you take to protect your assets and stop theft?
How do I know I am a victim?
Identity theft is used to cover a wide variety of crimes, from the common theft of credit card numbers to thieves who start false financial lives using your personal information. This type of theft is more difficult to identify but has the potential to be financially devastating.
To determine if your card number has been stolen, check your credit card and bank statements for accuracy. Keeping detailed records of the transactions you and your family make is the key to knowing what could be fraudulent. If you see charges you didn’t make, your card details may have been stolen. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the only way to steal a credit or debit card is to physically take it. The recent Target Stores breach, where more than 40 million credit card numbers, including expiration dates, names and CCV codes, were stolen simply because they were used at a Target store’s cash register. Unfortunately, this is an increasingly common way of stealing credit card information.
Total identity theft involves more than just the theft of a credit card number. Identity thieves find personal information about you, like your social security number and date of birth. With this information, they can open new accounts (which are approved based on your good credit history).
Determining if someone is using your personal information to set up fraudulent credit accounts, loans, or other accounts that have been opened in your name is a bit more complicated. Often these criminals open lines of credit using your personal information but with a different address, so you wouldn’t know something was wrong until the thieves defaulted on the loan or didn’t pay the bill. In that case, the creditor would come looking for him and find his real address using your credit report. If you get a notice saying you owe money to a creditor you don’t have an account with, don’t ignore it. It may be an indication that you have been a victim of identity theft. Similarly, if you start receiving statements from credit cards that you don’t own, the same thing may happen.
Often when you start receiving statements, you have been a victim for quite some time. The best way to be immediately alerted to potentially fraudulent information is to monitor your credit using one of several online services available for that purpose. These services will alert you by email whenever something new appears on your credit history, including new addresses, new loans, and new credit accounts. They will also alert you when an established account has a dramatic change in value; For example, if your credit card balance suddenly goes from $300 to $5,000.
What should I do first?
If you see transactions on your debit or credit card that you did not make, the first thing you should do is contact your bank or financial institution right away to let them know you are seeing fraudulent charges/debits. You should then immediately close the stolen card or breached account. Open a new account and receive new debit/credit cards. Most financial institutions have detailed instructions for customers who have a stolen credit or debit card. Follow his advice.
Identity theft requires additional steps, both to protect you from liability and to help apprehend the criminal. The following are some recommended steps to follow:
- A fraud alert should be added to your credit report immediately. Contact any of the credit reporting agencies and file a report. It will be shared with the other agencies.
- The Federal Trade Commission provides downloadable and complete identity theft affidavits; credit card companies often require this information. Fill one out and keep copies so you can send it to the creditors involved.
- Contact the police and file a report that your identity has been stolen. Provide any fraudulent addresses that identity thieves have attached to your credit report.
- Contact the US Post Office and report the fraudulent address being used.
- Continue to monitor your credit reports and follow up to make sure all fraudulent addresses in your name are removed from your credit history; otherwise, the thief could keep opening new accounts.
- Keep all records of all correspondence related to the theft.
Unfortunately, hackers and identity thieves are coming up with more sophisticated ways to steal your information all the time. No matter what precautions you take, there is no sure way to avoid becoming a victim. Follow the personal information security tips, but don’t expect them to be 100% successful. Be vigilant by looking at both your financial statements and credit history for abnormal activity. And know what to do in case you become a victim.