If you do not check your credit report on a regular basis, it might be too late before you discover that you are a victim of credit fraud and scams. The more time spent not noticing what s wrong with your accounts, the greater the damages you would have to repair. This is why most people are advised to get avail of the annual credit report given out to consumers for free. It is to be updated of their financial and credit status, dispute wring information and prevent fraud from sipping into accounts.
However, whether you have become careless in checking your credit report, or you have just become one of the many unfortunate people victimized by scammers, you should be informed of the right things to do when it happens. Here is the list of the actions you should take and remember when facts point out to your being a victim or a credit fraud. If you are able to follow these procedures, you can expect least inconveniences on your part.
There is such a thing as a victim statement. This notifies creditors and lenders that you have been a victim of a scam which could explain the damaging information on your credit report. You can file for an extended victim statement on your credit report when you find out that you are indeed a victim. There is also a ninety day security alert which would give you the time to investigate and verify whether or not scammers have gotten into your account.
One of the best things you can do upon discovery is to contact your creditors and lenders. You should inform them that your account is fraudulent and that you are a victim. This way, if the scammer continues to use your credit account, the creditors and lenders would know what necessary measures to take.
You should also keep your contacts. This includes all the people you talk with regarding your fraudulent account. Record their names, department names, phone extensions, dates and notes about your conversation. This will come in handy incase you need to go through things needed to repair your credit report.
When you inform your creditors about a fraud claim, there could be differences in how they would handle your account. You shouldn t expect the same procedure to follow across different creditors handing different fraudulent accounts. With this, you should fully understand the things they require of you and do ask questions when you are in doubt. After the investigations, it helps to ask your creditor for a document that states that you are not responsible for the debts produced by the fraud.
Finding out that you are a victim of fraud is the first step to counter it. It would take some time for the perpetrator to be caught and unfortunately sometimes they get away with it. But that does not mean that you should already be withdrawing your cooperation the investigative efforts. Make sure that things and information the creditor or the credit report bureau asks of you are received when you send them. Place follow up calls and send confirmation letters. These will make hasten the process and be of great help.
When the investigation is done and the problem is finally cleared up, don t stop getting a copy of your credit report. After several months of investigation, check your credit report just so you are sure that your accounts are clean again. Keep all documents for easy access in case something like that happens again in the future.
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This article has been provided by http://www.free-credit-reports.com , where you can compare credit report and identity theft protection services with this comprehensive chart of all credit report and credit score service providers.
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