Nothing is scarier than locating an account on your file that you believe doesn’t belong to you. You could be a statistic of the credit reporting and identity theft world we currently live in. Here are the steps you should take:
Steps to Removing Credit Reporting and Identity Theft
- First thing you should do is call up the credit reporting agencies or credit bureaus and file an initial fraud alert on your credit file. This will require future creditors to ask for more information to authenticate you prior to granting credit
- File a police report attesting that you never authorized this account, and thus it could only exist due to identity theft. That police report opens the door to your ability to get the information immediately blocked from your CR, and to compel the creditor to provide you documentation of the account. Additionally, you can use IdentityTheft.gov to file this report.
- Send a copy of that police report to the credit reporting agency, and they must immediately block that account from your credit report pursuant to FCRA 605A.
- Additionally, send a copy of the police report to the creditor, and demand all internal business records in their possession pertaining to the account, pursuant to FCRA 609(e).
This will insure going forward that all accounts shown to creditors are actually yours, and the score is reflective of your actual credit history.
This article was last updated on January 19, 2021
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