National Week of consumer protection: What to do if your identity has been stolen

National Week of consumer protection: What to do if your identity has been stolen -

This week is National Consumer Protection Week, and we are celebrating by giving you the best advice to protect yourself as a consumer. Today's topic is identity theft. Do you know what to do if your identity is stolen? The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has set up a guide of what to do if you are victim of identity theft. It gives a detailed list of all the steps and how to document these steps, as well as answers to common questions about treatment with identity theft.

As a quick reference, here is a simple how to do when dealing with identity theft:

1. Report an initial fraud alert. Call one of the credit reporting companies and place a fraud alert with them. They will give you instructions on what you need to do to remove the fraud alert. Here are the numbers of the 3 credit bureaus:

Experian: 888-397-3742
Equifax: 800-525-6285
TransUnion: 800-680-7289

2. Get your credit reports: once you place a fraud alert, the three evaluation agencies credit are required by law to provide you a free credit report, so be sure to take advantage. Check the reports to know which of your accounts have been falsified, then contact these accounts informing them of the identity theft.

3. Create an identity theft report: In order to create an identity theft report, you need a police report and a flight affidavit of identity of the FTC. So first, file a complaint with the FTC to get your Identity Theft Affidavit. Then take it to the police to file an official police report. This will be the vital paperwork that many companies require as proof that the transactions are actually fraudulent.

In response, you will need to dispute the fraudulent charge on each of your credit reports, which all good credit monitoring services and identity theft protection can help you.

Although no one can really protect against identity theft, most of the top identity theft protection services like Identity Guard Total protection®, can get a faster and more efficient fraudulent behavior and offer a variety of additional services from identity theft insurance to computer security. To see our top choices in identity theft protection and to compare these services here.