Not Again...

While checking our credit card statement online, we noticed that we have once again been the victims of credit card theft. (!) Last time if was with my debit card- this time it is the credit card.

Apparently, the credit card company had issued us new cards since our old ones expire this month. Since we never received them - and it's been several weeks since they were mailed- it seems that someone stole them from the mail. We have a locked mailbox, so that was not the problem.

I immediately asked for a new credit card number (for some reason, this company did not offer to do this. Our bank/debit card company did this for us before we even knew our number had been stolen!) but I did not worry so much this time.

Why, you ask?

Let me tell you what you need to do so that when (yes, when) your information is stolen, you are protected from several months of dealing with the problem.

By certified mail, write to EACH of the credit reporting agencies: Equifax, TransUnion and Experian and request that a SECURITY FREEZE be placed on all your records. This means that anyone who wants to access your information for the purpose of taking out a loan (for a car, furniture, etc) will have to contact you directly to lift the freeze. If the loan request was not from you, you can inform the company that the application was fraudulent and that will be the end of it.

Having a security freeze on your account does limit you in small ways. You cannot apply for an in-store credit card on the spot and if you want to apply for a car or house loan, you will have to write to the credit reporting agencies to temporarily lift the freeze to give creditors access to your credit history. Although there is usually not a fee to place a freeze, it will cost you around ten dollars per credit reporting agency to reinstate the freeze after it has been lifted for a time. (This is money well spent, in my opinion). Your current creditors will still be allowed access to your information even with the freeze.

I have spent weeks answering phone calls from used car dealers wanting to finish my paperwork for my car loan...Packages arriving that I did not order. I was signed up for several book clubs. And my stolen card was only active for three days before the account was shut down! The smaller issues like the book and coffee clubs would have happened if I had a security freeze or not. Those are easy to fix with a call to the companies and/or bank by disputing the charges. However, the bigger problems like all the loan applications would not have caused me a moments concern if I had had the freeze in place the first time since there would not have been much of a chance that the loan would have gone through (and my credit score hurt from those fraudulent debts).

Please consider placing a security freeze on your records with Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. It will save you so much trouble when this happens to you! Besides regulaly monitering your bank accounts, this is the best way to protect yourself and your identity!

Equifax.com
TransUnion.com
Experian.com
*All have information on their front page on how to request a security freeze*