I received in the mail a credit card I did not request. So I went to my credit monitoring service website. As I picked through the various categories there I noticed a line item that said new deposit account opened. This at a bank I do not have accounts with.
So I pulled my three credit reports. I found three credit cards recently issued in my name which I did not request, a checking account opened, and an address in another state.
I called my credit monitoring service. After I told the rep all of the above, she's like yeah it looks like identity theft. (Duh!) She says, do you want me to put a freeze on your Experian, Equifax and Transunion credit reports? I said yes. She says OK we'll do that. Good, we caught this early. You don't have to worry we're on it!
She says, a credit restoration specialist will call you within two days. Asks, best time to call? I said evenings. Well, no call after three days. On the fourth day the specialist called at 9:30 AM while I was at work. On my voice mail she says she'll email me her contact info. Two days after that call, she has not emailed me any information.
Two days after my initial contact with the monitoring service I went to the websites of the three credit bureaus just to check on the freeze status. None had been frozen. So I put the freeze on all of them myself.
If not for the credit card mailed to my home I would have no indication whatsoever that my identity was being used fraudulently, despite having a credit monitoring and restoration service. I have no idea how my personal information was obtained but it certainly was. I have called the banks involved and had those cards and accounts shut down, and as I said frozen my credit. Now I need to check other things like unemployment, Social Security, Tax fraud.
If it were not for that credit card in the mail (which I think was “mistakenly” sent to my home rather than the fraudulent address) I would have no clue at all the something was up until I was effected in some way by collections or credit or tax problems and at that point it would be much harder to deal with. Dodged a bullet maybe so to speak.
So the moral of the story is this; don't rely on a service to “protect your credit.” They can and in my case did fail. Be proactive even if you have no suspicions. At this time, because of the the pandemic, the three credit agencies allow you to get a free credit report weekly. Do so and review each and every line to be sure there's nothing suspicious. It does not take much time and you'll be doing way more than the monitoring services will ever do. Good places to start are two fed gov websites, annualcreditreport followed by .com and identitytheft followed by .gov
So I pulled my three credit reports. I found three credit cards recently issued in my name which I did not request, a checking account opened, and an address in another state.
I called my credit monitoring service. After I told the rep all of the above, she's like yeah it looks like identity theft. (Duh!) She says, do you want me to put a freeze on your Experian, Equifax and Transunion credit reports? I said yes. She says OK we'll do that. Good, we caught this early. You don't have to worry we're on it!
She says, a credit restoration specialist will call you within two days. Asks, best time to call? I said evenings. Well, no call after three days. On the fourth day the specialist called at 9:30 AM while I was at work. On my voice mail she says she'll email me her contact info. Two days after that call, she has not emailed me any information.
Two days after my initial contact with the monitoring service I went to the websites of the three credit bureaus just to check on the freeze status. None had been frozen. So I put the freeze on all of them myself.
If not for the credit card mailed to my home I would have no indication whatsoever that my identity was being used fraudulently, despite having a credit monitoring and restoration service. I have no idea how my personal information was obtained but it certainly was. I have called the banks involved and had those cards and accounts shut down, and as I said frozen my credit. Now I need to check other things like unemployment, Social Security, Tax fraud.
If it were not for that credit card in the mail (which I think was “mistakenly” sent to my home rather than the fraudulent address) I would have no clue at all the something was up until I was effected in some way by collections or credit or tax problems and at that point it would be much harder to deal with. Dodged a bullet maybe so to speak.
So the moral of the story is this; don't rely on a service to “protect your credit.” They can and in my case did fail. Be proactive even if you have no suspicions. At this time, because of the the pandemic, the three credit agencies allow you to get a free credit report weekly. Do so and review each and every line to be sure there's nothing suspicious. It does not take much time and you'll be doing way more than the monitoring services will ever do. Good places to start are two fed gov websites, annualcreditreport followed by .com and identitytheft followed by .gov
