Reporting Identity Theft

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If you're a victim of fraud or identity theft, then there are steps you need to follow to report your identity theft to various authorities. By taking the proper corrective action, you'll reduce the risk of further theft, and start a process that will clean up any of the inaccurate information on your credit report.

Recent statistics indicate that nearly ten million adults in the United States are victims of identity theft each year. In this article, we're going to discuss the measures you can take if you discover you've become a victim of identity theft. This includes reporting the theft to credit reporting agencies, law enforcement officers, as well as the Federal Trade Commission.

Filing a Identity Theft Reports

Additional Resources

In general, victims of identity theft should have three concerns:

Preventing thieves from continuing to use their identity to commit fraud
Starting the process of cleaning up / clearing up their credit reports
Supplying information to law enforcement authorities which will help to catch the identity thief

Anyone you contact, whether it is a law enforcement officer or a credit bureau, will be asking you basic questions about your experience. So it's important to keep accurate, complete, and organized documentation on both your experiences as well as the corrective measures you've taken to notify the proper authorities.

Identity Theft Documentation

The documentation you'll want to record should include both the information you've gathered about your particular case in addition to the actions you've taken to report the theft. Keeping accurate written records are essential in providing a precise paper trail of the steps you've taken to protect yourself from further credit damage, and speed the recovery of your creditworthiness in the eyes of creditors.

When composing and compiling this documentation, you'll want to ensure that you:

Retain all paperwork in a readily accessible location, and make sure all documents are kept current and organized in a well thought-out manner. This will help you quickly retrieve pertinent information later on.
Maintain a logbook of the dates, times, and discussions you've had both in-person and over the phone with various stakeholders. Include in this logbook the names, titles, and contact information for each of the persons with which you've spoken.
Send written letters to each of the persons you've talked to confirming what was discussed, and the follow-up items coming out of that discussion. Keep copies of all letters and mail them using the USPS Return Receipt process.

Identity Theft and Fraud Alerts

Victims often discover both identity theft and account fraud at the same time. The following four steps will help mitigate any short-term negative affects of the theft:

File a Fraud Alert with Credit Agencies
Complete an Identity Theft Report
Close Tampered Accounts
Notify Law Enforcement Officials

Each of these steps is discussed in more detail in the sections below.

Filing a Fraud Alert

Identity thieves can do a lot of damage to your credit report. To prevent, or reduce, the damage from a thief you should file a fraud alert with a credit bureau. The fraud alert will require you to take additional steps when applying for credit, but it will also prevent thieves from opening new accounts using your name.

The three major credit-reporting agencies each have a toll-free telephone number you can use to report the theft. That toll-free telephone number as well as the agency's mailing address appears below:

Equifax
P.O. Box 740241
Atlanta, GA 30374-0241
Toll-Free Number: 1-800-525-6285

Experian
P.O. Box 9532
Allen, TX 75013
Toll-Free Number: 1-888-EXPERIAN

TransUnion
Fraud Victim Assistance Division
P.O. Box 6790
Fullerton, CA 92834-6790
Toll-Free Number: 1-800-680-7289

Completing an Identity Theft Report

An identity theft report is nothing more than a police report that includes enough information to prove to credit bureaus that you've been a victim of identity theft. A standard police report will not contain sufficient details about the account, or accounts, which were stolen by the identity thief.

Ideally, you would want to use the FTC's Identity Theft Complaint Form and have this form appended to the standard police report. Local police officials are not required to use the FTC form and may even refuse to use the form. If that's the case, they will capture enough details in their report so that it serves as an Identity Theft Report.

Any Identity Theft Report should have two parts:

Part One - this part of the report is filed with law enforcement agencies such as your local police department, the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission and the US Postal Inspection Service. It contains the dates of the identity theft, the accounts associated with any fraudulent action, as well as any information you may know about the thief.
Part Two - the second part of the Identity Theft Report contains information the credit bureau may require beyond that contained in the FTC's form. This might include additional documentation that is reasonably intended to verify the identity theft. Credit agencies must identify the information they require for Part Two within 15 days of receiving Part One (the law enforcement document).

Closing Tampered Accounts

If you've discovered a new or existing account you own that has been tampered with by an identity thief, then you'll want to call that company and speak to an agent that deals with cases of fraud. As mentioned earlier, you'll want to keep a written record of all conversations, including the dates, names of persons contacted, and the topics discussed.

You may be asked to mail supporting documents - never send original documents, send a copy. If possible, send written correspondence using the Return Receipt process established by the USPS.

You may be required to complete a dispute form or an ID Theft Affidavit. Once you believe the fraud dispute has been resolved, make sure the company has closed the account in question and verified, in writing, that it has discharged the fraudulent debt.

Notifying Law Enforcement Officials

As a final step in reporting identity theft, you'll want to make sure you've registered reports with local, state, and federal law enforcement officials. If local law enforcement officials are reluctant to take a report, remind them of the importance of the report to credit bureaus.

A credit bureau may require a police report before they will resolve a dispute. They'll also need a report before they'll agree to block future charges, remove a disputed debt, or add a fraud alert to your credit report.

If you're still unable to convince your local police department to file a report, then your next stop should be a county police department. If you're not successful at the county level, then file a report with your state police department.

You'll also want to register a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. By doing so, you'll be doing your part to help stop identity thieves across the nation. You can file a complaint with the FTC using the form mentioned earlier. You can also call the FTC's toll free telephone number 1-800-ID-THEFT. Alternatively, you can write to the FTC at the address given below: