Identity Theft How to Protect Your Name (23 page)

with those from your new SSN. Even when the old credit information is not associated with your new SSN, the absence of any credit history under your new SSN may make it more difficult for you to get credit. There’s no guarantee that a new SSN wouldn’t also be misused by an identity thief.

Other places to call: •

Notify the Passport Office to be on the lookout for anyone ordering a new passport fraudulently (877) 4USA-PPT; 1-877-487-2778; TDD/TTY: 1-888-874-7793); •

Call your telephone, electric, gas and water companies and warn them that someone might attempt to open new service using your identification; •

File a
complaint with the police
where the theft took place; •

File a complaint with the U.S. Postal Service if personal mail was stolen (see Chapter 11);

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•

If your identity was used to get a driver’s license, visit your local DMV office to get a new license number. Also, if your state uses your SSN as your driver’s license number, ask to substitute another number; and

•

Contact the FTC to file a complaint. Fill out an online ID theft complaint (at
www.consumer.gov/idtheft
), or call the ID

theft hotline at (877) IDTHEFT (438-4338). You can also do this by mail: Identity Theft Clearinghouse, Federal Trade Commission, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20580.

•

Seek
legal council
if you have a problem getting creditors or credit reporting agencies to remove fraudulent entries. The FTC offers a sample dispute letter on its Web site. Disputes may require a sworn statement and a police report. For a form affidavit that can be used for the sworn statement, go to
www.consumer.gov/idtheft/

affidavit.htm
.

If a thief has established new phone or wireless service in your name and is making unauthorized calls that appear to come from—and are billed to—your cellular phone, or is using your calling card and PIN, contact your service provider immediately to cancel the account and calling card. Get new accounts and new PINs.

K E E P I N G A P A P E R T R A I L

Keep copies of all complaints, letters and correspondence. Maintain meticulous logs of your conversa-222

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tions and correspondence, including dates and names.

When you file the police report, don’t forget to get a copy of that, too. Your creditors might ask for that as
proof of the crime
.

Be polite but persistent when pursuing the clean-up. Discuss your situation with trusted friends and
perhaps seek the advice and support from a counselor or victim rights organization. Contacting your
local Consumer Credit Counseling Service office might
expedite removal of fraudulent claims from your
credit report. Call (800) 388-2227 for a list of offices.

Make sure you get copies of all documentation from all three major credit bureaus. Why? Because even though the three bureaus are similar, they will not have identical information. That’s why you should buy one report from each instead of paying $30-plus for a merged or combination report of all three.

Merged credit reports are harder to read than the
individual ones. The real estate industry is the only
one that uses a merged report, so if you have to
dispute an item or items on your report, you’ll want
the individual ones.

You’ll need an individual report if you plan to dispute a listed item.

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I F L O C A L L A W E N F O R C E M E N T F A I L S

One of the hardest parts to dealing with identity theft is getting anyone to
help you quickly
. Calling the credit bureaus, your bank and creditors won’t fix the problem immediately. It’s like getting into a car accident. Even if the accident wasn’t your fault, once you file the claim with your insurance company, it usually takes months—years, even—to get results. You won’t see a resolution in 24 hours or a check in your name at the end of the day. And you won’t get “pain and suffering” damages when all is said and done.

Because the laws regarding identity theft lack defini-tion and the nature of the crime requires a multi-jurisdictional collaboration, you might find it challenging to get local law enforcement to do anything effectively.

You’ll need a police report to dispute unauthorized
charges and for any insurance claims. Your police
department may say this is unnecessary (they usually do because they don’t want the paperwork).

Always fill out a police report as soon as you have
proof of bogus credit card charges or other evidence of ID theft.

Although the Secret Service has jurisdiction over financial fraud cases, it’s hard for an individual to get the federal agency’s attention unless the dollar amount is significant. If you want their attention, ask someone in the fraud department of your credit card companies and/or banks to notify the particular Secret Service agent with whom they work.

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T H E W A I T I N G G A M E

Waiting for results can be tiring. Once you’ve disputed an item on your credit report, the law says the credit agencies have
30 days to respond
whether or not the disputed item is correct. If you don’t get any response within that time frame, then all disputed items must be removed. Most likely you’ll hear from the credit bureau within those 30 days.

The bureaus’ replies should include a new copy of
your credit report and a cover letter explaining the
results of its investigation into your disputed
item(s). Disputed items will often be listed as “verified no change,” “deleted” or the report will contain some updated information.

Deletions are good since those items will no longer haunt your credit. Updated information is also good, since these are usually corrected names, addresses or other possible late-status info.

Verified items are still part of your file. If you still think the item is wrong, try
contacting the original
creditor
who placed the listing.

If the report says an item is “unverified,” then by law it must be removed from your file. Send a copy of this along with a letter requesting the unverified item be deleted. The credit bureau must make the change you requested and notify anyone who received a credit report containing that unverified item.

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By the way, sometimes items are later verified and put back on your file. Just remember that items cannot be reinserted on your report unless the credit bureau
notifies you in writing.

If a reinvestigation doesn’t eliminate a disputed item, you can file a
statement of up to 100 words
explaining your side of the story. Credit bureaus must include this explanation in your report any time they send it out.

C R E D I T R E P A I R S E R V I C E

If you’ve got an extreme case of identity theft and you can’t get the credit bureaus to remove the disputed items from your report, you might have to resort to a credit repair service for more help.

Beware: Use credit repair shops with caution. Many
will falsely guarantee things or make too-good-to-be-true statements. Credit repair shops cannot guarantee to clean your record…but they can guarantee
to raise your credit score.

Adding insult to injury, some ID thieves set up bogus credit repair operations as a pretext for getting ID

information of inattentive people. To avoid the
scam
artist
working in the credit repair shop, consider these tips: •

Look around for repair shops that are established and offer reasonable rates that aren’t dirt cheap or ridiculously expensive.

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•

Check with the Better Business Bureau or local Chamber of Commerce to get histories and accreditations.

•

Before you hire a credit repair service, read their contracts carefully and ask about refunds.

Typically, a credit repair service will cost you $500.

This may seem like a lot of money, but it might be a good investment if it cleans up errors and allows you to apply for lower-interest loans and lines of credit.

If you do go with a credit repair service, you should not apply for credit until the company’s work is completed. And, again, don’t expect a perfect ending.

Remember: Whether you fight the battle yourself or
get professional help, you can wipe out errors from
your credit report. Disputing wrong information is
just one of the many ways you can take control of
your financial future.

One of the most common things a shady credit repair company will do is bombard the credit reporting companies with disputes about items on an individual’s credit report with the hope that the credit reporting companies will be too overwhelmed to confirm all items within 30 days, and will then tem-porarily remove negative items from the consumer’s credit report. This won’t fix your report in the long run, since any verified item will come back.

Another thing to watch out for: credit repair shops that encourage you to create a “new” credit report or
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identity by applying for an
employer identification
number
to use instead of your Social Security number. Obtaining an EIN, which is used primarily by businesses, under false pretenses is a crime. If you’re fighting an identity theft case, the last thing you want is to do something illegal in cleaning up after someone else’s criminal behavior.

C R E D I T W A T C H S E R V I C E S

We talked about all the new services offered by credit card companies, credit bureaus and insurance companies to monitor your credit. Although most of these services can cost—upwards of $120 a year—it might be worth it for you to have, especially if you don’t know whether the person who has already stolen your identity once won’t do it again.

Credit watch services won’t do much that you can’t
do on your own. What these services offer is a helping hand through the credit bureaucracy. The FTC

will take a report of the identity theft, notify law-enforcement officials and offer advice, but it won’t
resolve the problems a thief leaves behind.

If you didn’t have insurance to help cover the expense incurred by fixing an ID theft problem, consider getting some. Call your
homeowners or renters insurance company
to inquire about adding a rider or purchasing a stand alone policy. But be careful: you might already have some coverage on your policy. And, you should not have to pay more for the security you should already be getting automatically
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from your credit bureaus and credit card companies.

Maybe it’s time to
evaluate the kinds of cards you
carry
in your wallet, and the kind of service you get when you call those toll-free numbers for help.

When battling the credit card agencies to erase credit
they gave out to someone impersonating you, request a “letter of clearance” that you can use to
send to collection agencies. And when you do, send
it certified mail, return receipt requested, and keep
a copy for your files.

D O N ’ T F O R G E T T H E L A W S

Starting in Chapter 6 we took a look at the laws and agencies that are available to help you when you become a victim of identity theft. Don’t forget about your
rights and options
. Federal laws mandate procedures for correcting credit report and billing errors and for stopping debt collectors from dunning you for sums you do not owe. The
Truth in Lending
Act
limits your liability for unauthorized credit card charges to $50 per card in most cases. The Fair Credit Billing Act establishes procedures for resolving billing errors on your credit card accounts, including fraudulent charges.

If someone steals your checks and forges your signature, there are no federal statutes that limit your losses, but state laws offer some protection. Most states hold the
bank responsible for losses
from a forged check—provided that you have taken reasonable care
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of your account and you notify the bank promptly that a check was lost or stolen The Fair Credit Reporting Act establishes procedures for correcting mistakes on your credit records and requires that access to your records be limited to people who have a permissible purpose.

Remember: If you file a claim with a credit bureau
stating that your records are inaccurate, the credit
bureau must investigate it in a timely manner, usually within 30 days. It must delete from your file
any disputed information that cannot be verified
and must also correct erroneous information.

Even though the law gives you important protections and rights, the old proverb still holds: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

F I G H T I N G B A C K

One summer day, Jerad Rose, from Louisville, Kentucky, bought computer equipment from an online merchant. Three days later, while checking his bank statement online, he discovered an unauthorized purchase for $825. Rose immediately paid a visit to his bank and canceled his card. But it was too late. Within a few days, 14 purchases, totaling more than $1,600, had been charged to his account. Rose had broken one of the most important online rules:
he’d used
his debit card
. So the criminal had access to his bank account, leaving his checking account overdrawn.

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Rather than let his bank handle the matter, Rose called each of the online merchants where illegal purchases were made and explained his problem. Together, Rose and the vendors were able to
trace the computer
from which the order came, confirming that it wasn’t from his computer. The result? He prevented more than $1,100 in sophisticated camera equipment from being shipped to an unknown person in Indonesia.