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It is never easy to find out that you’re a victim of identity theft. You’ll have feelings of shame and anger, yet the best thing to do once you find out is to begin the process to clean up your credit. Once you catch and dispute errors, the easier the cleanup would be. With that in mind, you’ll require patience as disputing credit report entry take time.
Below are some of the things you must do once you find out you’re a victim of identity theft:
- Put Credit Freeze and Fraud Alert on Your Credit Reports
For you to safeguard your credit, you have to put either fraud alert or credit freeze around your credit. Once you do fraud alert, expect that it will last for 90 days and if you like to renew it, you could. You may also have an option to do an extended one that lasts 7 years. If you want to do an extended one, you’ll have to get in touch with every 3 credit reporting agencies and request it over the phone. You may also do it online.
If you think fraud alert isn’t enough protection, you may do credit freeze. It would put your credit on lockdown and nobody can access it. See to it that you keep that in mind if you are planning to apply for loans where you know they’ll have to check your credit. If you want to lift credit freeze for some reasons, you may do so.
- Close Out Any Debit or Credit Cards
Call every card company and debit cards to report about fraudulent charges as well as request that they close your account. You may then have them open new account for you with a new card. The faster you do this, the faster you could put stop to the spending spree of the theft.
For you to complete your Identity Theft report, you will have to get in touch with local police department about your theft. Make particular to ask for a police report’s copy and report number. Your FTC Identity Theft Affidavit and police report make up Identity Theft Report.
- Provide Your Creditors with an ID Theft Report Copy
Notify every creditor in writing that you’re the victim of fraud and make sure to add a copy of your own Identity theft report. You might also like to ask every creditor to give you and police department with documents that show fraud transactions. They might not just hand it over to you, yet fight for that if you want to. This information will assist you when tracking down the one that stole your identity. At times, although this is a legitimate claim, credit bureau still give you problems so consider hiring a professional credit repair company like us to do this for you.
- Change Every Account Password
You must go through with your accounts and consider changing the password. Ensure to avoid using some obvious things for your passwords. A password must be a combination of lower and upper case letters with special characters and numbers.
The Bottom Line
Safeguarding personal information must always be at your mind. You have to take note that identity theft is rampant and you have to be aware on how you share your personal information. If you fall victim to this crime, those tips above can help you back on track.
