Identity Theft - How best to fight it once it happens?

[zulu01]

So my wife's information has obviously been stolen. They have tried to open several credit cards that we know of. They were successful in getting one card opened. The others have been stopped in the application process due to missing information. She got a call this morning about another pending application.

She went went on the credit bureau sites and did a fraud alert. It's a pain since you have to renew this every 90 days and it doesn't appear to be helping. What else should we be doing? Is there anything we can do to lock this shit down?

[CS1983]

LifeLock?

[brutal]

You should have all three credit bureau LOCKED.

Use each site's fraud assistance program.

Transunion also allows an extended fraud alert (7 years) I didn't look at the others. https://www.transunion.com/fraud-vic...ce-fraud-alert

If they have her social, you should also probably contact the IRS. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/how-...fraud-activity

…suspect someone stole your identity and used your SSN for employment purposes or could use your SSN to file a tax return
Use Form 14039*

*Spanish version: Form 14039 (SP)
Complete the form online, print it and mail or fax to the appropriate office using the options listed on page 2 of the form. Include photocopies of at least one of the documents listed on the form to verify your identity. For additional information, refer to the Taxpayer Guide to Identity Theft

[Ramsker]

You should also be able to do a security freeze . . . which is more definitive than a fraud alert. It should prevent people from opening new accounts under her/your name, but won't prevent someone from using an existing ccard they get a hold of. If they try to open an account, they run into the freeze. We had to do that when someone in our HR org got phished and sent someone a large export of personal data. We also received 2 year memberships in a credit monitoring service--thankfully, nothing has come of it up to this point.

The security freeze can be a pain if you want to open a credit line . . . there are ways to approve it and you can remove it when you want. In our case, we don't generally have a need to open new credit lines and so it's been a non-issue for us.

[Wulf202]

I had identity theft happen in the middle of my subscription to allclear ID. A theft protection service. They didn't do anything helpful.

As above. Lock it down and get your irs pin.

When you go to unlock it. You need to start like
6 weeks ahead of time.