Has one of the following happened to you?
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You receive notification of approval or denial of credit for accounts you have not opened,
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You miss credit card or bank statements, or no longer receive them at all.
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Your credit card statement includes charges for things you know you never bought, or
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A collection agency tells you they are collecting for an account you never opened.
If any of these things have happened to you, chances are that you may already be a victim of identity theft.
In a recent FTC survey it was revealed that one quarter of victims of the most serious forms of identity theft, those that had new accounts opened (mainly credit/loan accounts) which impacted on the victims credit rating took six months or more to discover the identity theft.
You need to be sure you are not a victim of identity theft. You need to order copies of your credit reports and monitor them regularly.
How to get your credit reports:
The best protection against Identity Theft is to monitor your credit report. Although it is not insurance against Identity Theft, fast detection of misuse of information has proved to be the best method of reducing the implications of Identity Theft.
I recommend the use of a credit monitoring service, where you receive alerts when any information on your credit report changes or when there is any activity on your credit report. Contact details of the Credit Bureau's can be found below.
Credit Bureau Contact Information
Credit Bureaus gather information about how consumers use credit and sell that information to anyone who has a legally permissible purpose. That is why we all get credit and other offers - this is one way in which the credit bureaus make money.
You can remove your name from marketing lists of the three credit reporting bureaus to reduce the number of pre-approved credit offers you receive.
Below is the main address and telephone numbers for the three major credit bureaus in the U.S.
Equifax
P.O. Box 740241
Atlanta, GA 30374
1-800-685-1111
Experian
P.O. Box 2002
Allen, TX 75013
1 888 397 3742
Trans Union
P.O. Box 1000
Chester, PA 19022
1-800-888-4213