Dealing with finances can be stressful enough, without having to worry about falling victim to identity theft. If in dealing with your personal finances you do discover or even suspect that this has occurred, there are definitely some actions you will want to take …..immediately.
With bad credit – or the fear of bad credit becoming a reality for you – you will want to take steps to ensure this occurrence does that derail your credit even further.
In order to prepare for this potential reality, here are three steps to dealing with identify theft – and fast!
Step #1: Contact Your Financial Institution or Lender
In the event you suspect or know for a fact your financial details have been stolen – and identity theft is likely to have occurred – your initial response should be to call your financial institution. At this juncture, you will want to request that they cancel your cards.
While typically a bank will contact your or put a hold on your card whenever they detect suspicious activity – this may not always be the case and therefore, you may need to be the one to make the call and have your cards cancelled.
Following this step, you can also request that they re-issue your card. Although, this is a common course of action for a lost or stolen card, it is still a wise method of avoiding or minimizing the damage that can be caused by identity theft.
Step #2: Contact Your Credit Agencies
At this point in time, you should also be looking to get your hands on a copy of your credit report as soon as possible. You should also, however get in the habit of consistently reviewing your credit report in order two monitor your credit transactions and to generally have an idea of how your credit is being determined. Now with that being said, this can also be a method that can be used to first spot suspicious account activity.
Now that you have clearly identified that there is a discrepancy and one in particular that you think may relate to identify theft, here is where you will also need to be in direct contact with your credit reporting agencies.
Since there are more then one of these agencies in Canada, yes you will have to contact each of them (TransUnion Canada & Equifax Canada) to discuss this situation. As each agency devises their own separate reports based on your credit information, it doesn’t really do you any good to only contact one of them. By contacting each of these agencies and signifying you believe you have been a victim of identity theft, they will provide you with the proper course of action you can take to deal with this dilemma.
Ultimately however, they will investigate the situation further and are likely at this point also to place a fraud alert on your file. This again, is a step that should be taken as soon as you realize something is wrong, as the sooner this situation can be dealt with, the sooner your credit can be re-established and your financial situation can become more secure.
Step #3: Contact the Police!
Last, but certainly not least – you should also get in touch with your local police department as soon as you suspect identify fraud has taken place. As mentioned in the previous step, you want to be sure to take action right away in order to identify the point of origin for your stolen identity – and this can also begin with the help of the police.
After contacting your local authorities, what is likely to occur next is that they will file a report and look into this crime by following the trail the ‘perpetrators’ have left.
The moral of the story here is – the sooner you report the occurrence of identify theft – even if it is merely a suspicion inkling – the better, as the ‘bread crumbs’ will be fresher – and your finances won’t continue to suffer as a direct result.
In the end, this is why is is so vital that you continue to monitor your credit very closely, beginning with obtaining a copy of your credit report on a regular basis. As a step, this will therefore enable you to identify any wrong-doings or suspicious activity in any of your accounts as soon as possible.
By reporting the occurrence of identity theft to all of the proper channels asap straight away, you can take the necessary steps that can keep bad credit at bay and allow you to successfully move forward with more financial piece of mind.
When all is said and done, the faster you realize that this is a highly time sensitive process – the more seriously you can approach and hopefully also counteract the negative effects this situation can have on your credit.
