ID theft attempt hopefully thwarted, but what next?

blakfeld

I recently had the good(?) fortune of catching someone trying to steal my identity, and doing kind of a piss poor job at it. I think I've curtailed most of the damage, but what I really need to do now is take a good look at my credit report. Now, I see ads for free credit reports and all the like, but they always require a payment of some sort, or at least a promise of future payment, I know there is one out there that is truely free, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is, and was hoping one of you could point me in the right direction.

Heres the story if you're interested. I went to get my car inspected (it's a requirement here in Texas), and when my insurance company faxed my card over, I noticed the address was wrong. I didn't think much of it, until I tried to sign up for Gamefly, put in my billing address, and had it tell me that was wrong, so upon further investigation I found that my bank had had the same address attached to it. I looked it up on google maps, and it is a residential address, some mad google-fu later I was able to find who the house was registered to, as well as his phone number and e-mail. I've changed the information back, and changed my passwords, but I also sent a letter with no return address saying I was aware of what had happened, that understood that it could have been a mistake, but requesting that if it was in fact on purpose, for the individual to stop.

So, what do I need to do to make sure i'm safe?

Daenris

https://www.annualcreditreport.com/ Is the government website to get your free credit report. It won't show you a score, but for your case you just want to see the report to make sure there isn't anything weird showing up on it. (http://www.ftc.gov/freereports)

You should let your bank/credit card company know what happened. To be safe they'll probably issue you a new card with a new number so that the old one won't work in case someone has the number.

Mr Blonde

Shouldn't you consider going to the police to possibly stop future thefts of identity by that person?

matt has a problem

Uh, yeah, the fact that he got the address on your bank account changed means he has all the information he needs to change it again, and open new accounts in your name. This is definitely something you should be calling the police about.

blakfeld

matthasaproblem wrote: »

Uh, yeah, the fact that he got the address on your bank account changed means he has all the information he needs to change it again, and open new accounts in your name. This is definitely something you should be calling the police about.

Fair enough, I wondered if I had enough information to call the police. Thanks, the bank and the police are now my next phone calls, I'll update with how that went

blakfeld

Okay, credit report checks fine, the bank wants to bill me a bunch of money, and change all of my plans I have with them to charge me even more money, so, this'll be a chance to find a new one, something I'd wanted to do anyway. I called the police, and have an officer on the way to my house as we speak to file a report. Aaaand my Credit looks good and correct to me.

Thanks for the tips guys, I had no idea what to do.

I think this can be locked? Anyone else got any more advice

Mr Blonde

Just remembered something, call the three credit agencies and place a fraud alert. It lasts 90 days and will let potential creditors know that you may have been a victim of identity theft. You can even go so far as to put a freeze on your credit report so no new creditors can access it. You can lift it temporarily any time you need to have a creditor access it.

Shadowfire

blakfeld wrote: »

Okay, credit report checks fine, the bank wants to bill me a bunch of money, and change all of my plans I have with them to charge me even more money, so, this'll be a chance to find a new one, something I'd wanted to do anyway. I called the police, and have an officer on the way to my house as we speak to file a report. Aaaand my Credit looks good and correct to me.

Thanks for the tips guys, I had no idea what to do.

I think this can be locked? Anyone else got any more advice

Tell your bank to go stuff those charges. They want to charge you for changing things to protect you from further identity theft which they fell for as well? The bank needs to know that they will either change these things for free, or your accounts are going to another bank. Don't let that stand. That is terrible customer service.

blakfeld

Shadowfire wrote: »

blakfeld wrote: »

Okay, credit report checks fine, the bank wants to bill me a bunch of money, and change all of my plans I have with them to charge me even more money, so, this'll be a chance to find a new one, something I'd wanted to do anyway. I called the police, and have an officer on the way to my house as we speak to file a report. Aaaand my Credit looks good and correct to me.

Thanks for the tips guys, I had no idea what to do.

I think this can be locked? Anyone else got any more advice

Tell your bank to go stuff those charges. They want to charge you for changing things to protect you from further identity theft which they fell for as well? The bank needs to know that they will either change these things for free, or your accounts are going to another bank. Don't let that stand. That is terrible customer service.

Thats what I thought, but I've had nothing but bad expirences from Wells Fargo, they've lost the chance to make it right, I'm changing banks.

Also, good call on calling the credit companies, I'll do that now

blakfeld

Alright, Police officer just left, report is filed, and my account is on fraud alert.

You guys are life savers