Credit Loan > Identity Theft > Stopping Identity Theft Is An Uphill Battle

The Explosion Of Identity Theft With No End In Sight

When people like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates can become a victim of identity theft and the criminal never gets caught, you know that things are getting out of control. Unfortunately there is no way to protect yourself completely from the criminals that might steal your identity. What you can do to protect yourself from identity theft is really in your own hands. I know this because I have also been a victim of identity theft.

It happened the first time about five years about. I was in the habit of throwing away the credit card offers I got in the mail. I would just toss these offers into a recyclables bin and forget about them. Until one day I got a strange letter in the mail.

The letter said that I was in collection for an outstanding credit card balance in the amount of ten thousand dollars. Shock does not begin to describe how I felt. First of all, who in their right mind would give me a credit card for ten grand? Not only was I in college for my seventh year, I did not even have a job.

After the initial shock wore off I decided to call my folks. They told me they would call a lawyer for me to get it taken care of and I was supposed to go the police. Well it took the lawyer almost a year to fix it and thankfully my folks paid for it. And well, the police never got any clues as to who was responsible.

Well now I am here again fighting another case of identity theft. This time I think it was someone online that somehow got my information. Either way I think I might put an identity theft alert on my credit report that will stay there for a number of years.

Apparently there are steps that someone can take if they feel they might be a victim of identity theft. One of these steps is to put an alert on your credit report. There are two types of alerts, one that is for three months and the other will stay on your credit report for up to seven years.

I got lucky this time. After the last bout with identity theft I started to check my free credit report at least once a year. So I was able to stop the thief before he was able to steal much money. I will never forget to check my report at least once a year from here on.