This is a post I wish I wasn’t writing. I landed at a conference this week to find that someone had stolen my identity and was using it to make open credit cards, lines of credit and accounts at various places. I am hoping that by sharing some of the initial lessons I learned this week I might help you avoid the pain (which will be ongoing for some time) that I am going through.
I count myself lucky. Based on what I know so far, the thieves who stole my identity were not terribly smart. I was able to find out almost immediately because they used my email address for all the fraudulent account and purchases that they made. This allowed me to immediately begin addressing each instance as I became aware of it. But I doubt most cases will be so obvious, and, even in mine, there’s a distinct risk that there are things they were savvier about.
Keep in mind, I am not an expert in any of this. I am just someone navigating the issue myself and sharing a little bit of what I wish I knew beforehand.
Mitigating the risk
One thing I wish I knew before this happened was that you can freeze and unfreeze your credit at any time – and it’s easy and free. All three credit agencies (Equifax, Experian, Transunion) offer the service, you just need to create an account with them and confirm your identity. Once you have access, you can freeze and unfreeze your credit at any time and at no cost (note that each of these companies also offer paid services, but this is free).
Why would you want to do this? Well, a majority of the time, you don’t need to allow access to your credit. If you are applying for a loan, credit card, mortgage and so on, then you will, but in most other situations you won’t. By freezing your credit, you can help prevent folks who might attempt to steal your identity from doing what they did to me and opening credit cards and lines of credit in your name. Instead, it should come up as frozen and their attempts should be rejected.
You can unfreeze it at any time. So if you are going to be in one of those situations where you need it, just unfreeze it. Once that situation is resolved, you can refreeze it. It’s literally just a matter of logging in and clicking a button based on my experience.
You may also want to get a identity protection service so that you can be aware of a situation if it arises, even if your credit is stolen (and because they can do other things with your identity than open credit cards).. I am 100% not an expert on this, but after doing some research I chose ID Shield because they will help you resolve situations that arise rather than simply notify you (unfortunately for me this doesn’t apply to situations that came up prior to purchasing). In my very limited experience, it will take some configuration to get the settings right. At the moment, it is warning me of too many unproblematic items. Definitely do your own research on this one.
Resolving the issue
Since I wasn’t aware of the above, I did not do anything really to mitigate my risk unfortunately. What I did right away was do some digging about what to do once you notice your identity has been stolen.
One of the first things that it is recommended to do is to report identity theft to the FTC. The online report didn’t take me more than 20-30 minutes to fill out. You tell them some details about each specific incident you are aware of where your identity was used. From what I was told from some of the creditors and businesses I contacted, they may ask for this report as documentation of the incident if you are disputing a charge. I have not needed to use it yet, but I have it in case. Plus, it gives you a useful and customized plan of action when you are done to resolving the specific incidents you shared.
The next step would be to report the fraud to one of the three credit agencies (Equifax, Experian, Transunion). This is different from a freeze, though the process is the same if you want to do it online. You can also call and do it. As I understand it, this also freezes your credit for a year, though you can remove it at any time (or extend it if necessary it seems). If you do it with one of the agencies, it is supposed to notify the other two. I can confirm that in my case, this did happen.
Some places recommend filing a police report. This may also be useful documentation, particularly if there was an high degree of theft involved. In my case, I’ll admit that I have not done this and, so far, it has not appeared necessary.
Of course, the steps that follow depend on what the thieves did specifically. For me, it began with cancelling the cards that were opened in my name by reporting them as fraud. Then I called each of the orders made under my name and reported those as fraudulent. There were additional applications for credit made under my name that were not yet approved, but I also called and reported those as fraudulent before the application had been processed. In this last case, it was an email to confirm my email address from Bank of America that tipped me off, which initially seemed potentially innocuous. I will admit that some banks and stores were much more responsive than others.
All in all, it has been very time consuming, and it’s not over. The latter application to BoA was made this morning. Since the fraud was reported to the credit agencies, it does appear that this wasn’t going to be approved, but I reported it to BoA anyway just in case. Unfortunately, I expect that over the next weeks or months I will learn about more incidents both new and old ones I may have missed. I hope some of this advice helps you avoid that or deal with it if you encounter it.