Free Annual Credit Report

Have you thought about identity theft?  You have certainly heard a great deal about it.  You have likely read about people who have been victims, and you have also heard the importance of protecting your social security number and other information. The problem is, as criminals become smarter, it has become more difficult than ever to protect against identity theft.  However, there are measures you can take in order to lessen the impact of identity theft.  When you lessen the impact, you can control the damage that identity theft will cause.  You want to protect your credit, and reducing the impact of identity theft is one way to do that.

First, you want to make sure you keep good records.  Good records are a great way to fight against identity theft.  It is much harder to steal the identity of someone who is organized than someone that is disorganized.  When you keep good records, you are more likely to become aware of the fact that someone has stolen your identity.  You can then fight against the identity theft and protect your credit.  You need to keep records of every credit card you have, along with the purchases you have made.  This will make it much easier to prove your case if something were to happen.

Next, you need to go to www.annualcreditreport.com and order your free credit reports from the three major credit reporting bureaus.  By ordering the three free credit reports, you will be able to see if there has been any activity on your credit that you did not know about.  For example, you can see if there were cards opened up in your name that you did not apply for.  If there are, that is a red flag that you have been a victim of identity theft.  At that point, you can start to take measures to protect your identity.  If you feel you have been a victim of identity theft, you can place a fraud alert on your credit file.  When you do this, you will only have to place the fraud alert with one of the credit bureaus.  They will then notify the other agencies.  The fraud alert will make it more difficult to obtain credit.  Credit will not be able to be obtained quickly. Instead, the information will need to be verified. While it might take longer to get credit, that is in order to protect you from identity theft.  The credit bureaus will ensure that you are the only person who is obtaining credit on your credit file.

Identity theft is a serious crime, and you must make sure you protect yourself.  In some cases, identity theft cannot be prevented, but it can be detected quickly.  Once it is detected, the authorities can be alerted and you can get the negative information wiped clean from your file.  However, it is important to detect the fraudulent activity quickly in order to get the item removed from your file.  In order to protect yourself from identity theft, you must know what is going on in your credit file.