If you already have an Emergency Incident Response plan in place, contact your identity protection services firm to enlist their help in recovering your identity. If not, contact www.privacyrights.org for assistance from a dedicated team of volunteers who are willing to assist you.
File a police report immediately after you detect the theft. You will need this to extend your credit report fraud alert past the standard 90 days to seven years, and many creditors require one to resolve your dispute. If you're told that identity theft is not a crime under your state law, ask to file a Miscellaneous Incident Report instead. If you can't get the local police to take a report, try your county police. If that doesn't work, try your state police.
Order a copy of your credit report for review. Check that information, like your Social Security number, addresses, name or initials, and employers are correct. If you find fraudulent information, such as inquiries from companies you haven't contacted, accounts you didn't open, and debts on your accounts that you can't explain, take steps to have it removed. See http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/con_resolv.htm#correct for more information on removing fraudulent credit information.
Notify your financial providers of the theft and review their zero-liability guarantees. Remember, the Fair Credit Billing Act limits your liability for unauthorized credit card charges to $50 per card but it requires that notifications of fraudulent charges be sent in writing to the creditor's "billing inquiries" address and are received by the creditor within 60 days of the date of the statement that included the fraudulent charge.
If fraudulent accounts have been opened in your name, contact each of the creditors for any accounts that were falsely established in your name. Ask to speak with someone in the security or fraud department. Find out if the company accepts the ID Theft Affidavit. If not, ask the representative to send you the company's fraud dispute forms. According to the Fair Credit Billing Act, you must follow up the calls with a letter to the creditor. When writing to a credit card company, be sure to send the letter to the address provided to report billing errors. Do not send it to the payment address. This sample shows you what your letter might look like.
Continue to review your credit report on a regular basis for at least one year after the identity theft incident has been detected to mitigate further compromises.
Action Steps
