subject: Learning The Process Of Reporting ID Theft [print this page] Learning The Process Of Reporting ID Theft
Reporting ID theft is not easy. After all, discovering you have become a victim can be emotionally devastating and physically draining.
It is certainly not fun to have great credit on one day, and find out the next day that charges have been made on your credit card without your authorization. Worse yet, your bank accounts may be drained or other personal information or property may be stolen from you.
Reporting this type of crime is also not easy from a logistics standpoint. There are a lot of confusing steps to take. All along the way you may hit roadblocks and challenges.
For example, creditors just want their money. They don't tend to care about you reporting ID theft unless you can really prove that you aren't the one who cheated them out of payments.
Unfortunately, this is easier said than done.
Believe it or not, the process of reporting ID theft really starts with a simple police report. The moment that you discover a problem, talk to your local law enforcement officials. This way, you will have a specific record of reporting the incident.
However, it takes more than this if you want reporting ID theft to really matter. For example, you need to also file an identity theft report with law enforcement if you want to make real progress.
A true identity theft report will go into much more detail than a simple police report, and help verify that the incident actually occurred. In your identity theft report, you need to describe as many details as you can.
List dates, times, dollar amounts and especially account numbers. Any suspicious activity on any of your accounts needs to be reported as quickly as possible. Hopefully, you won't be blamed for those things if there is a record of you reporting ID theft in a timely manner.
Once you have an ID theft report in hand, you need to send it out to specific agencies, beginning with your credit reporting bureaus. Otherwise, you'll find that your credit score may get completely destroyed by the fraudulent charges and activity.
Generally, credit reporting bureaus will remove identity theft incidents from your official credit history, but they need proof in order to do that.
The next action you will want to take is to send a copy of your identity theft report to the Federal Trade Commission. This way, you will have all of your bases covered.
Not only that, but reporting ID theft to the FTC will help them to monitor the rise and fall of identity theft incidents. It may even help them to zero in on some of the crooks who may continue victimizing people.
So, remember that reporting ID theft is a vital part of undoing any damage caused by identity thieves.
