By: LINDSEY O’NEILL, ESQ.
We’ve all seen those clever Capital One credit card commercials showing one person, but hearing another person’s voice, illustrating identity theft and fraud. Has someone used your personal information to open credit cards accounts and not pay the bill? The FTC estimates that as many as 9 million Americans have their identities stolen each year.
If you’re identity has been stolen, the credit card company or a debt collection company usually tracks you down at some point to demand payment. As a result, your credit report probably shows negative information about your bill-payment history, and your credit score has probably been lowered considerably, making it difficult or impossible to obtain new credit yourself.
What can you do? You can file a police report, file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and your state Attorney General, place fraud alerts on your credit report, close any unauthorized accounts, and submit formal disputes of any unauthorized charges. Creditors will likely ask you to complete a fraud affidavit. The FTC has a standardized form affidavit available. Find additional forms and guides in LawInfo’s Free Legal Resource Center.
Watch this informative video from the Federal Trade Commission about deterring, detecting and defending against Identity Theft.
Its amazing how quick this can happen … I came home from work one Monday to hear a message on my answering machine that Visa had suspended my debit card because of strange activity … sure enough there was about $200 of extra charges that weekend. I almost felt bad when I saw all the extra charges were for baby clothes at the local discount outlets, but the pity stopped once I saw how long that form is from the FTC, plus the extra forms my bank had me file.
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Identity theft is a major issue facing folks today, especially with the growth of the Internet and people’s increased dependance on things like Blackberries and PDAs. The easiest way to fight identity theft is to guard your information as if it were a million dollars, because to some criminal it just might be.
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