How To Protect Yourself From Identity Theft: Part III, What To Do If Your Information Has Been Compromised

It’s a very unpleasant feeling to discover you have been a victim of identity theft. In parts I and II of this article we covered what information thieves look for and how to take preventive measures to avoid being in this situation. However sometimes even after taking all precaution possible we still find ourselves having to deal with someone stealing our information, usually after seeing strange charges on our bank statement. If you have had the unfortunate luck to find yourself in this situation, here is a list of things you can do:

• Contact the company that you received a charge from: some people will try to test your card in some platforms to see if you’ve noticed the charge. Before calling the bank you should attempt to reach out to that company and inform them of the fraud case. Many times they will offer you a refund and the information that was associated with the fake account. You can use this information to file a police report.
• Document all of your interactions: try to communicate through writing and document all of your interactions, including the date and name of the people you talked to if possible time. The more information you have the easier it will be to present your case and be able to fix the collateral damage.
• File a police report: using the information you gathered in the previous two steps file a police report. Without a police report, you will find it hard to argue a case in your favor. Identity theft is a crime and if you do not file a report against that they might declare it as you taking responsibility for it or some of the payments that were charged to your name.
• Place a fraud alert or credit freeze on your credit card report: This is to have it recorded in your bank statements that there’s been a case of fraud or theft. It won’t affect your credit score but it means that if someone is doing a review or audit on your financial history, they will understand that discrepancy.
• Check your credit reports regularly: this should already be a habit if you want to catch credit card fraud from the start, but you should do this even after you’ve reported the theft. You never know if maybe you’ll receive other charges.
• Always follow up: make sure you follow up wherever you can to see that a.) your money has been returned to you, b.) the people in charge of solving this are doing everything they can.

Your course of action might depend on your own personal experience, so to best prepare on how to avoid these situations or respond to them, you need to do your research. Take a look into the book Identity Theft For Dummies, or any other book regarding cybersecurity that we offer on our online library www.gellmedia.com.