Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Protect Yourself Against Identity Theft

If You Believe You Are the Victim of Identity Theft:

1. Contact the fraud departments of any one of the three consumer reporting companies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) to place a fraud alert on your credit report. A fraud alert tells creditors to follow certain procedures before open any new accounts...

2. Close the accounts that you know or believe have been tampered with or opened fraudulently. Use the ID Theft Affidavit when disputing new unauthorized accounts...

3. File your complaint with the FTC. You may print a copy of your complaint to provide important standardized information for your police report...

4. File a report with your local police or police in the community where the identity theft took place. Give the police a copy of your FTC ID Theft complaint form. Get a copy of the police report (or, at least, the police report number)
(Source: FTC)

Be smart, be safe, and be thankful you live in Michigan.

1 comment:

Brenna said...

Good info. One easy way to help prevent ID theft: shred everything. All those credit card offers that come in the mail, blank checks that draw from your credit card accounts, and anything with your SS number on it.

It's a pain - particularly with the volume of junk mail we are inundated with daily, but nothing compared to the nightmare ID theft presents.