Other than paying for a credit report/check {they all seem to charge, even the FREE ones},?

Question

what's the best way to make sure someone isn't using my identity ( in usa), my wallet was stolen with lots of personal info, ss# and more???

Thanks for any real advice

Answer 1

You are right, the "free" sites require you to sign up for a monthly monitoring service (which isn't a bad idea if your ss# and more are floating around, you may want to subscribe to a monthly monitoring service for 6 months or a year)

However, the government requires all three major credit reporting agencies to give you a free annual credit report. You can collect this credit report at the official site: www.annualcreditreport.com

You can obtain all three credit reports at once, or obtain them a few months apart if you want. Each credit agency maintains separate records, so they do not always match. Some credit issuers only report their info to two agencies.

I hope you found this useful, I assume that you reported all your credit/debit cards stolen already?

Answer 2

If you think that your information can be used to open up new credit you first need to place a Fraud Alert on your Credit Reports. You can get an initial fraud alert that will remain on your report for 90 days. During this time any time someone requests new credit with your SSN the creditors have to go through extra steps to prove that it is actually you. The link below will give you the information on how to do this.

Once you do that you should also go to http://www.annualcreditreport.com and pull your credit reports. You are allowed 1 free report from each of the 3 main ones per year. If there is anything on there that is not yours you need to dispute it and have it taken care of.

Answer 3

there are great explanations on myfico.com

one is to pull a credit report from one agency every four months for free from annualcreditreport.com If there is something odd with your account, ie identity theft, checking one bureau at a time should be enough.

You can also subscribe to a myfico.com service that will monitor your credit but for a fee.

I'm following the first suggestion and feel pretty secure with that.

Answer 4

If your wallet was lost or stolen you can put a fraud alert on your credit bureau information and they will send you a free credit report once a year when you ask for it. You need to flag your accounts so no new credit is opened in your name without your knowledge.

Answer 5

go to annualcreditreport.com There is another site called freecreditreport.com and it isn't free, but you can get all 3 at the first site I gave you, or you can check 1 every 4 months or whatever, but only time per year per agency is free.

Answer 6

the credit reports say free but it cost 1.00 you just cancle before your 30 days free trail is up