It could be because of your “happy-go-lucky” attitude towards securing your personal information that led you to becoming a victim in the first place. But let’s not go back to talking about it. The important thing after you realize that you have been taken for a ride is to be proactive and sort out the mess. Leave the justice seeking to the relevant authorities and do whatever is in your power on the rest. It is definitely not the time to take a back seat. Here are the things you should do as soon as possible.
Contact the bank where an account has been compromised
The basic instinct for most people will be to call up the bank immediately and put a halt on all transactions. Banks are usually very responsive to reports of suspicious activities on user cards. They can put your card into suspension immediately to keep you and themselves safe from more fraudulent activities. The number to call can usually be found at the back of your credit card or via a hotline found on their websites. You can also start initiating transaction chargebacks during the phone call.
Contact all other financial institution that you deal with
Wise men say that it is best to be safe rather than sorry. Let’s go with that. Even though your other accounts were not compromised, you want to keep your lender or bank on the alert. They probably won’t require you to change account or card numbers, but they will be on a higher alert for suspicious activities and transactions on your account.
Call the credit agencies
Depending on what kind of an alert you request on your own identity, credit agencies can act accordingly in a few ways. One is to freeze inquiries on your credit. This effectively prevents any new debt being taken in your name. Because lenders will need your credit report in order to assess the approval for credit facilities, an inability to obtain the report effectively burns the bridge. However, this is an extreme action meant for extreme circumstances.
Place a police report
I honestly don’t know what exactly the police do as I have never had them solve a problem for me on the reports I’ve placed. I’m thinking that maybe they collect all these information so that they can have a whole file of information to prosecute criminals if they are ever caught. The more important thing though, is that for many activities to follow through, you will need to produce a copy of your police report. An example is when you are making a claim from insurance.
Report to the Federal Trade Commission
Again, I don’t actually know what the FTC do with our reportings. But I would like to believe that they use all these information to work on statistics and programs to help educate the public on protecting themselves from falling victim to identity theft. And maybe they are on the trail of suspects and what you reported could just be a lead they are waiting for.
Inform debt collectors
You might find an amusing facial expression when you tell debt collectors that the debt they are helping to collect are opened fraudulently. They are not supposed to pursue you anymore. This is one of those instances where your police report might come in handy.
Sign up to credit monitoring services
You really don’t know what kind of information about you that is being passed around in the hands of bad company. And because of that, you really don’t know how the vicious cycle of credit fraud can repeat itself all over again. If you really want a simple fix to sleep better at night, sign up for one of those credit monitoring services so that you can access your credit report anytime you want. These service providers also have add-on services that can send you an alert whenever something amiss shows up on radar.