A common problem for many Americans is credit fraud. Many people don’t know what to do if someone opened a credit card in your name and may experience panic. Keep your composure! There are steps to take to keep your credit safe and inform the people that need to know about identity theft.
Key Takeaways
- Steps you should take in the event that you believe your identity has been stolen.
- Call one of the three credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, or Transunion
- Recheck your credit reports
- Report the accurate information to the credit agency
- Change your bank account login information and email passwords
If you are concerned about this happening to you then you might consider employing the credit monitoring service. With credit monitoring service, they will carefully be monitoring your finances and your credit; you can catch problems like this before they deal a significant amount of damage.
This tool will help you find any issues of identity theft and fraudulent activity which include social security number and credit checks. If someone opened a new credit card in your name try to use TransUnion's free credit check to find it. There are other credit reporting agencies that will work as well such as Experian credit report, Equifax, but felt TransUnion's was the best.
Here’s How to Check If Someone Opened a Credit Card in Your Name – Take the Following 8 Steps
Provided below are the steps you should take in the event that you believe your identity has been stolen. If you believe this is the case, remain calm and take immediate action. Not all criminals will use a stolen credit card immediately, some steal them with the intent to sell them, which is good for you, it gives you time to call and take care of the problem. The sooner you work through the necessary steps the sooner the situation will be resolved and you can move on from the situation. This is what to do if someone opened a credit card in your name.
1. Contact the Credit Card Issuer’s Fraud Department
The sooner you inform the credit card issuer and explain about the possible credit or debit card fraud the more likely it is that you will get out of the situation without any lasting damage. If you contact the credit card issuer and inform them of the card’s stolen nature before it has been used then they know that any purchases using it in the future will not have been made by you.
Even if the card is used before you call you are still helping yourself. The sooner the problem is reported the less damage can be done so the most important thing you can do is act quickly.
2. Report the Identity Theft
The second thing you should do is report the identity thief. Start by filing a police report regarding the identity theft and make sure you keep the details organized and available in case legal action is required to resolve the situation.
Follow up by reporting the credit fraud to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and initiate a recovery plan. They will assist you in sorting out the credit card statements of the situation and may even grant you a free credit freeze if you choose to take that step.
3. Consider a Fraud Alert or Credit Freeze
You may wish to place a swindling alert or credit freeze on your credit report. This step will make it more difficult for the identity thieves to open new credit acount in your name. If that is a concern then you should certainly take this step. To do this, simply call one of the three credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, or Transunion. You only have to contact one, they are obligated to immediately inform the other two upon being notified. A swindling alert limits access to your credit report by requiring identity verification. A credit freeze will stop all access to your credit report until it is lifted by you. Failure to do can hurt your credit scores. For that matter, we also advise you how to improve credit score in UK.
Initial fraud alert
The initial swindling alert is attached to your report for 90 days and notifies viewers that you are suspected to be the victim of identity theft. If anyone attempts to send a credit application in your name the recipient will be required to contact you and verify your identity. Once the initial 90 days are up the identity theft alert can be renewed as many times as necessary as long as you remember to renew the alert every 90 days.
Extended fraud alert
If you are looking for long-term protection and don’t want to continue to renew your initial fraud alert then you might consider an extended fraud alert. This type of alert will last for a total of seven years. If you are intending to set up an extended fraud alert you will require a copy of the police report you filed earlier. If you later decide that the full 7 years is not necessary then you can have the swindling alert removed at your discretion.
Credit freeze
A credit freeze won’t just require that you be notified about activity regarding your credit scores, it will place a hold on all of your credit score information entirely and ensures that most lenders won’t open a credit card account in your name. This type of credit card fraud protection requires that you set it up with all three credit agency instead of just one. This is total protection but at the cost of making it difficult for you to use your own credit. Any time you need to do so you will need to request a temporary lift of the freeze.
If you choose to issue a credit freeze on your information, know that in some states this will incur a fee though they are waived if you share a valid investigative report.
4. Review Your Credit Reports
After you have reported and protected your financial information your next step should be to recheck your credit reports and compare them to your own records. If you are lucky then you have caught the credit fraud being perpetrated against you, but it is also possible that there is more going on. It is important that you recheck the accounts on your report and ensure that they match your records.
To aid you in these reasonable efforts, you should know that you are entitled to one free credit report per 12-month period from each credit agency and another free report upon requesting a fraud alert.
5. Dispute Fraudulent Information With the Credit Bureaus
If you find fraudulent information while reviewing your credit reports then it is your responsibility to report that accurate information to the financial institution like credit agency and ensure that the information is acknowledged, noted, and corrected.
6. Complete an ID Theft Affidavit
You should complete an ID Theft Affidavit once each of the earlier steps are completed. This is a document that gathers all of the data of your identity theft as well as your personal information in one place to assist you in proving that your personal financial data was used when opening a fraudulent credit card account.
7. File a Police Report – What if the Culprit Is Somebody You Know?
If the perpetrator of your identity being stolen is someone you know, like a friend or family member, it is understandable that you might hesitate to file a police report against them. There are many variables you will consider and if other family members or friends know about the situation they may attempt to convince you not to file against the perpetrator, but ultimately it is up to you to act with your own best interest in mind. If you don’t do anything to dispute the fraudulent charges and/or accounts then the responsibility for them will fall on your shoulders, which you certainly don’t deserve.
8. Dispute Fraudulent Accounts With Each Credit Bureau
If you find any accounts that you did not open while reviewing your reports and your personal records it is important that you dispute these accounts with the major credit bureaus. Inform them that the balance associated with the account is the result of fraud and make sure to present any documentation you received from the credit agencies when you filed your incident report and requested the fraud alert.
Once the credit agency confirm with the credit agencies that what you are saying is true they will remove the accounts from your report. This is important because accounts that are opened as a result of fraud are unlikely to have payments made on them which could tank your credit and hurt your personal finance capabilities.
Change Your Passwords and Secure Your Online Accounts
If your financial and personal information has been compromised, your online accounts could also beat risk. Immediately change your bank account login information and email passwords.
Family members often know your commonly used passwords. So if you’ve been the victim of identity theft, you should update all your passwords — not just passwords for financial accounts.
FAQs
1. How do I know if someone opened a credit card in my name?
There are a few ways to find out if someone opens a credit card in your name. One way is to check your credit report. You can get a free credit report once a year from each of the three credit reporting agencies: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Another way to check is to call the credit card company and ask them if they have received any applications for a card in your name.
2. How can I find out if someone is using my identity?
There are a few ways to find out if someone is using your identity. One way is to check your credit report. You can get a free credit report once a year from each of the three credit reporting agencies. Another way is to check your bank account and credit card statements for unauthorized charges. If you see any charges that you don't recognize, contact your bank, financial institution or credit card company immediately.
3. Can a spouse opened credit in your name?
No, it is not legal for a spouse to open a credit card in the name of his or her partner. When spouses open credit cards in their partners' names, however, they begin accruing more debt on their partners' accounts that they may be unaware of.
4. Are you liable if someone opened a credit card in your name?
According to the Federal Trade Commission site, you are not liable for any debt incurred on fraudulent accounts opened in your name without your permission in the majority of states. Following that, contact one of the 3 credit bureaus and request fraud alerts be placed on your file.
5. What to do if you think someone opened a credit card in your name?
Here are five steps you can take if a credit card is opened in your name in order to close the credit card account and prevent further credit card fraud.
1. Contact the Fraud Department of the Credit Card Issuer.
2. Inform the authorities of the identity theft.
3. Consider placing a swindling alert or freezing your credit.
4. Conduct a credit report recheck.
