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If you have a lost wallet, check for insurance scams. Many insurance scams with medical, life, home, and auto, insurance companies have taken place, many of these show up after a stolen or lost wallet. Some of the common insurance scams have included people cashing in on an life insurance claim, from the time the deceased burial notice is posted, before the funeral. One of the more common insurance scams has been someone buying and insuring a car in your name. It’s not also not uncommon for someone to get drugs & medical benefits using your card. (see Report 9). Also check hospitals & clinics if you received a bill for services not received . Even if you get a lost wallet back your social security number may have been recorded, or credit cards switched, (See report 3).
International Check Services - Bad check reporting company. Phone: 1-800-526-5380.
Internet Crime Complaint Center - If your a victim of an Internet related crime or cyber identity theft, this is the complaint form/ site.
Contact your States Insurance Fraud Department if you were scammed by an insurance agent.
IRS Advocate Service - Contact them if you’re being charged for tax fraud. Phone: 1-877-777-4778.
Keep good records of everything you do for your identity theft case. Record time, date, who you talked to, when you called, what documents sent. Make sure all documents are sent by certified mail and only mail them directly from the post office. Some companies will have time compliant forms, it is important to record when you received it, and when it was mailed back.
Lock your personal information at home in a secure place or safe, especially if you have roommates or employ outside help, or are having work done in your house. Also if working in an office setting make sure your purse is in a locked area, not just setting in a drawer.
Report mail fraud & mail theft to your local postal inspector. About 2% of identity theft is caused by mail fraud. Mail fraud often happens when someone steals your mail, changes your address and applies for new credit in your name at a new address. This can also happen when someone steals your trash. (See report 23). In recent years the postal service has put new safe guards in place to check for mail fraud, but it still happens. For more information, go to www.usps.com/postalinspectors or Phone: (800) ASK-USPS. Get a postal box for mail delivery, and mail only from inside a post office, as there have been cases of thieves stealing the blue mail box, (See Report 9).
Monitoring your credit report. Watch for new accounts, new addresses and even new employment in your name.
A few words of wisdom - Credit monitoring cannot notify you of new activity until it is reported to them by the grantor generating the new activity. Some creditors report instantly, some daily, some weekly, and some monthly or quarterly. In fact, some creditors do not report to any of the repositories. No single credit monitoring company receives all the consumer credit data. Consequently, applying for a credit card today does not mean you’ll receive an alert tomorrow. It may take days, weeks, and in some cases, months before your new activity is reported to the credit repositories. In short, credit monitoring does not provide you with notification of new credit activity in your name. Credit monitoring does provided notification of certain credit activity occurring in your credit file. With continuous credit monitoring you are taking an active role in helping to reduce the amount of time fraudulent activity could appear without your notice. In most cases your credit report is where most id theft and id theft attempts will show up first. Monitoring does not stop creditors and collection companies from seeing your file, it only helps prevent the opening of new accounts.
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