12/16/2018
While this is not strictly IT related, I figured this information might be appreciated, if not now, perhaps sometime in the future.
Inspired by last month’s events when someone made a $4,000+ purchase for five new iPhone’s at a Sprint store in Sherman Oaks using my son’s identity, I finally got into doing what I’ve always recommended – freezing my credit. I thought this just might be just enough encouragement to get you to do the same and protect yourself and your family and reduce the likelihood you’ll be spending hours and hours cleaning up the mess AFTER your identity has been compromised.
I figured that having all the information in front of you will make it easier to act. Additionally, most people believe there are three credit bureaus – actually there are four. Finally, I discovered that public utilities and cell phone providers don’t always use these four credit bureaus, but instead rely on a separate agency. A link for all five organizations is provided below so that you can put aside an hour to get this done:
• Equifax: (800) 685-1111 or https://www.freeze.equifax.com/
• Experian: (888) 397-3742 or https://www.experian.com/ncaconline/freeze
• TransUnion: (888) 909-8872 or https://freeze.transunion.com/
• Innovis: (800) 540-2505 or https://www.innovis.com/securityFreeze..
• NCTUE: 866-343-2821or https://www.exchangeservicecenter.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo.jsp
Trust me, doing this will take much less time than it took us to file various disputes with Sprint, FTC, place fraud alert with credit bureaus AND freeze my son’s credit. Do this TODAY!
One additional thought – after we finished with all these things in my son’s case, we discovered a nice resource published by FTC, which covers numerous scenarios and provides recovery guides:
https://www.identitytheft.gov/
Finally, here is on more thing to consider, which is often overlooked until it is too late….Attempt to protect yourself from having someone fraudulently filing a tax return using your SSN. Details are here:
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tips-for-taxpayers-victims-about-identity-theft-and-tax-returns-2014
