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If your identity's been stolen, the first thing that you should do is file a police
report. And then the next is you should go to the FTC’s website, and you fill out the
form under identity theft. It’s laid out very nicely, and you can fill out an affidavit,
swearing to this has happened to me, and create an identity theft package. Once those things
are done, then you need to call the credit bureaus, and you want to put a fraud alert
on your credit. The fraud alert is going to last for 90 days, but it’s a good idea to
have that immediately done, because you want to put a stop to any other transactions being
taken place under your identity.
The next thing you need to do, is contact each trade line who's been affected and make
sure that they are aware that this has happened. You want to call your credit card companies
and let them know that this has happened to you, and to be on the look-out for it. They
may even suggest getting a new credit card. They may even issue you new cards. If it’s
in regards to your checking your account, your bank may close that account for you and
open up a new account, with a new routing number, all those types of things. Um, if
there’s an account that is yours, and there’s been some activity on it, you’ll want to
go through the dispute process about that. So there are several things that you need
to do, but the important thing is that you have to be organized. You have to start making
a list of all the things that have happened, keeping a file, getting contact names, all
of the companies that are saying you owe them money that you really don’t. You have to
keep in touch with them. Find out who you talked to, write their name down, get their
phone number, what’s the next step, what do you need to on your end, what do I need
to do? Do they need copies of your police report? Do they need copies of your ID theft
affidavit? You have to get all of that information laid out and be very organized, because it’s
going to take some time. You cannot resolve this overnight. It will take some time. You
will get to a point where think everything’s been done, and I’m done with it. But then
something else could come up 4 months down the road that you have to address. So it may
take some time, but being persistent, and being committed, and being organized is key.
If your identity’s been stolen, it could be anywhere from either one month to one year
to resolve the issues.