Fighting Back Against Identity Theft

Identity theft is a serious crime that has many sources. Every year, people from all walks of life become its victims. Your identity is valuable. If someone steals it to commit fraudulent acts, it can affect every aspect of your life - your credit standing, your ability to buy a car or a house, even get a job or medical care. And it can take years to repair the damage. Most important, it can happen to anyone at anytime, in ways we never imagined.

The average ID theft victim spends about 600 hours trying to clear up credit problems.

Some of the most common methods used by identity thieves involve digging through the trash, eavesdropping while someone types in their PIN or gives personal information, stealing account-related mail from mailboxes, and acquiring online account information in devious ways.

The possibilities are scary, but you can protect yourself by adopting these good habits:

• Give out your personal information on a "need to know" basis. Don't be afraid to politely refuse to divulge unnecessary info, like your billing zip code.
• Be savvy about scams. Keep up to date on new ways identity theft is being committed, and decide how you'll avoid those traps. Pay close attention to unexpected requests for account information, whether through email or over the phone.
• Shred away. Bank statements, credit card offers, and anything else that contains account info should be shredded before you recycle it.
• Check your statements and credit report often. The sooner you discover fraudulent charges, the less damage can be done.

Our Certified Financial Counselors are experts in assessing the damage and determining the best corrective action to dispute and resolve your identity theft problems as quickly as possible.

In a confidential counseling session, either in-person or on the phone, a counselor will review your credit report with you in detail, to help you identify any fraudulent accounts and inaccurate information. Our counselor will then give you step-by-step instructions on how to dispute the fraudulent data, correct inaccuracies in your credit report and clear your good name.

As part of this process, you will receive our Identity Theft guide which includes sample letters, credit bureau contact information, checklists, important phone numbers, web sites, and e-mail addresses to help you resolve your problems as quickly and easily as possible.

For detailed information on Identity Theft such as avoidance and recovery, please check with the following resources:
www.consumercents.com – AAA Fair Credit Foundation's Financial Education Program
www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/ – US government’s site for Identity Theft information

10 Minute US government video outlining the national problem of identity theft.