Identity Theft

Every year lives are ruined by identity theft.

An identity thief gets their hands on your ID, a drivers license, social security card, or even worse buys your data on the dark web. Then they start taking out credit in your name. What does that look like? A leased apartment, buying a new car, taking out a string of credit cards. If you are like most people, you don’t keep a close eye on your credit. And if you don’t have a service like CreditKarma then you won’t know that someone is using your identity at first.

Even if you do have a credit monitoring service, an ID thief may create a hybrid identity. A hybrid identity is where the thief uses your last name and a different first name, a small change to your date of birth, or SSN. This hybrid identity may not appear on your credit report at first, but is may later. The credit reporting agencies report aliases and when a creditor sends the information to them it will likely end up on your report. This may be the first time your realize your identity has been stolen.

Once you realize your identity has been stolen you need to report it. There are two types of reports. The initial fraud report, it can be accomplished with a phone call:

• Experian – 888 397 3742
• Equifax – 888 836-6351
• TransUnion – 800-680-7289

This initial fraud report is good for 90 days. After that you need to get a police report. This report needs to be mailed into the CRAs. This fraud report will last for 7 years.

We would like to show you how to start putting your life back together. If your identity has been stolen give us a call and we’ll help you get it resolved.