{"id":49,"date":"2025-09-02T07:35:39","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T12:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fcallc.biz\/blog\/?p=49"},"modified":"2024-12-23T18:07:18","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T23:07:18","slug":"identity-theft-and-your-credit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fcallc.biz\/blog\/?p=49","title":{"rendered":"Identity Theft and your Credit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: small; font-family: Calibri;\">Your FICO score is one of the most important numbers that you must safeguard.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>Imagine having someone steal your identity.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>If not caught early, identity theft can lead to serious problems with your credit score.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>A year ago, I became a victim of identity theft.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>It happened so quickly that I did not have time to react.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>But luckily for me, I caught it early.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>If you happen to become a victim, there are a few steps that you should follow:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-top: 0in;\" type=\"disc\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\"><strong style=\"mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;\">Call the bank or credit card Company<\/strong> to notify them.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\"><strong style=\"mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;\">Call the police.<\/strong><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>The police will file a report.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>The bank or credit card company will need the report to file with their records. They will also need this to start their investigation.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\"><strong style=\"mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;\">File a report with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).<\/strong><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>The FTC has a form to complete for identity theft victims. <span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0<\/span>The form will be used for identifying you as a victim of identity theft.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>The FTC will also use the form to complete an investigation.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>The form can be found at:<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: small; font-family: Calibri;\">http:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/bcp\/edu\/microsites\/idtheft\/<\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-top: 0in;\" type=\"disc\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\"><strong style=\"mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;\">Call the three major credit bureaus<\/strong> and have a fraud alert added to your credit report.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>This will allow creditors to know that you\u2019ve been a victim.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>They will have to take added steps to approve someone who tries to use your credit.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in; text-align: justify;\"><strong style=\"mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;\"><span style=\"font-size: small; font-family: Calibri;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri;\">I followed all of these steps after I became a victim.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>Other precautions that I took included freezing my credit.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>I also purchased a shredder and I shred all personal documents.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>I hope that you will never have to go through this.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>But if you do, now you\u2019ll know have a better idea of steps to take.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Your FICO score is one of the most important numbers that you must safeguard.\u00a0 Imagine having someone steal your identity.\u00a0 If not caught early, identity theft can lead to serious problems with your credit score.\u00a0 A year ago, I became &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fcallc.biz\/blog\/?p=49\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-finance","tag-credit-report"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fcallc.biz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fcallc.biz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fcallc.biz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcallc.biz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcallc.biz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcallc.biz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcallc.biz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/51"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fcallc.biz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcallc.biz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcallc.biz\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}