Have you been a victim of identity theft? It could take a bit of work to clear your name. However, here are a few tips to make the process easier.

1. Contact the fraud department at all the credit bureaus. They should be able to place a “fraud alert” on your account, requiring creditors to call you before opening new accounts in your name.

2. Get your credit reports from all the major reporting agencies in your country and track the abuse. You should be getting your credit report at least once a year, to check for errors and fraud.

3. Contact the credit card company or bank where fraud is being commited and have them close or suspend the account. Explain what you feel has been stolen and when you think it started. They’ll be able to help you further from there.

4. Call your local police department and file a report detailing the fraud with as much information as possible. You may find that credit bureaus will be quicker to help you if you provide them a police report.

5. If you live in the US, file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. They maintain a database of ID theft cases for their investigators.

6. Try to have all your identity documents reissued by issuing organizations and government.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 9th, 2006 at 8:23 pm and is filed under Identity Theft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.