Your credit rating can be severely affected when someone steals your identity, and the damage can go on for months or years if you do not work aggressively to stop it. Fraud alerts are an important tool in the fight against identity thieves. The alerts let you use your credit bureau reports to warn creditors that someone may be impersonating you and trying to open a fraudulent account. These alerts are free and can be easily added to your credit reports.
Step 1
Call the police department and ask an officer to fill out an official report. This document will be necessary should you decide to place your fraud alerts for the longest possible time rather than just temporarily. Some local police departments may not wish to take a report, according to the Federal Trade Commission. In this case, the FTC advises filing a report with your county or state law enforcement officers.
Step 2
Contact TransUnion, Experian or Equifax and ask for a fraud alert to be added to your credit report. All three bureaus have instructions on their websites for placing an alert over the telephone or through an online form (see Resources). The bureaus are independent of one another, but once you place an alert with one it will automatically pass your request to the other two companies. The fraud alert will remain on your reports at all three bureaus for an initial 90-day period.
Step 3
Contact each credit bureau separately and ask it to continue the fraud alert for the maximum time possible, which is seven years. You are required to show a copy of a police report to receive this extension. Your alerts will expire in 90 days with no opportunity to extend them if you didn't report the fraud to a law enforcement agency.
Tips and Warnings
- Call your credit card company immediately at its fraud line if the fraud is related to strange charges on the card. Placing fraud alerts on credit reports does not automatically alert your card issuers. The credit card company can give you a new account number and deactivate the old one to prevent further fraudulent transactions. You are entitled to free credit report copies when you add fraud alerts. This gives you an opportunity to dispute any fraudulent accounts.
- Fraud alerts do not completely prevent identity theft and other problems. Freeze your accounts with all three bureaus as the best prevention. This bars anyone from accessing your reports for any reason unless you provide a special password or personal identification number. There is usually a minor charge to do this, although fraud victims in some states can request a no-cost freeze.
Member Comments