Signs of Stolen Identity

Think about how many people have your contact information and your financial information, that’s a scary thought. Fortunately, after reading this article you’ll be able to recognize signs of identity theft, and what you can do about it. Now, it’s impossible to conceal all your information from banks, creditors, and credit card companies. Yet with a lot of things that could go wrong, there’s some good news. The good news is there’s things that you can watch for if you’re identity has been stolen.

First Sign

First sign is your mailbox is empty more than usual. The advertisements that you use to get often, you don’t get anymore. Companies stop offering you credit, and reaching out to do business. When this happens go into proactive mode, especially if you have not heard from your creditors in a month. If this is the case, then you need to reach out to them online. If you need to meet in person do that too. If you don’t have paperless billing setup, you might want to consider it for two reasons. One, it’s a good thing to do for the earth, so we can continue to enjoy breathing. The second reason is because it starts limiting the amount of personal information that’s going into your mailbox, which can be intercepted.

Second Sign

Second sign is your getting phone calls and letters from lenders that you don’t know. If you got a bill for a Ferrari, and you don’t have a Ferrari that’s a sign that someone’s trying to use your credit, and that you’ve become a victim of identity theft. So if you get unfamiliar calls from unknown numbers and unknown creditors saying that you owe them money is very suspicious activity. You need to find out what’s going on as soon as possible by not ignoring collection calls or ignoring bills just because you don’t recognize the account or the creditor. Be proactive and get on the phone with them to report fraud that is happening on your account, because they’re going to keep hassling you, and it’s going to cause problems down the road.

Third Sign

Third sign is that you were denied for credit. Anybody would be surprised if they got a denial letter for a credit application they never submitted. Thankfully, the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires lenders to send denial letters when the letter is used to deny credit. So if you get one of these documents, and you haven’t applied for credit, this is an indication that someone is attempting to take your identity. So what you can do is check your credit reports to make sure there’s not other applications that may have been submitted in your name. If you don’t see any other applications, they may be in the underwriting process. In this case, place fraud alerts on your credit reports if you want to stop the fraud. You can also put a security freeze on all your accounts. Now, if you’re planning on purchasing a home or a car explain your situation to the lender, so you can get approved.

Fourth Sign

The fourth sign is that you see unfamiliar credit inquiries. The scary thing about this is the credit reporting agencies are required to place a record on your credit reports each time they share your credit information with a third party, which is an inquiry. Now, if it’s hard inquiries it hurts your credit score. Hard inquiries can drop your score 3 to 5 points per inquiry. After seeing fraudulent inquiries on your report, you want to add fraud alerts or place security freezes on your accounts immediately. Credit Karma’s website makes it easy for you to file any kind of dispute or ask for any resolutions.

Fifth Sign

The fifth sign is that your credit score has drastically drop in points. So what you want to do is get in the habit of reviewing not just your credit reports once a month, but learn how to read your credit reports in detail, and understand how they work. If you start seeing that there’s something going on with your credit, then you want to make sure that you’re notifying the credit agencies immediately.