How Long Does It Take to Clear Your Name if Your ID is Stolen?

In Identity Theft Not that Big of a Deal (And What to Do If You're a Victim), I highlighted a couple of comments where the posters said it took them only a few hours to clear their names after their identities being stolen. In response, I said:

I guess the learning here is that identity theft doesn't necessarily sentence you to an extended trip to financial purgatory.

Here's how a couple people responded to this thought:

Both my wife and I had out IDs stolen this year (we bought a house in Feb, and figure somewhere along the line our data was stolen/sold). Let me give a plug to Citibank later on, the first card was opened in my name at Sears (whose credit is run by Citi) and the thieves spent $2400. Citi thought that this was unusual, so they red flagged it, and found out that the phone number the thieves put down didn’t match the one on my credit report. They called me to ask if I had opened an account in Phoenix that morning. Living in Oregon, I told them I hadn’t. They closed the account and advised me to call the credit agencies, which I did, and put the fraud alert on my account. Good thing too, I stopped these bastards from opening 3 more cards in my name. This was on a Saturday.

On Sunday, I thought it might be a good idea to put a fraud alert on my wife’s credit report, just in case. Turns out that was a smart thing to do, the thieves opened 2 accounts in my wife’s name (spending close to $5000), but we stopped them from opening 2 more accounts before they gave up using our information.

Now my accolades for Citi, They did a great job in contacting me, on a Saturday nonetheless. But that’s not all, I have had a CitiCard sine 1994, and they have an ID theft department open to any Citibank customer (I never noticed the commercials until after this event, you know the ones with a guy working out, but he’s got the voice of a valley girl). Let me tell you how great this service was. The lady who helped me got all my information about what had happened, called three-way to TransUnion and did all the talking while I listened to her clean up my credit report. While they only work with TU, it was helpful to listen in and learn the things I would say to the other 2 credit agencies. I just can’t say enough good things about Citibank.

All in all, it took a good 15-20 hours to clean up our ID theft, which wasn’t really that bad since we were able to stop the thieves the same day. I would have hated to have received the cards and statements later on and try to fix it from there. Final word: get a CitiCard - no annual fee, good rates, decent rewards programs, and Citi Identity Theft Solutions.

So, another vote for "not that long" to clean up a problem. Seems like one must-do is to contact your banks and the credit agencies quickly. Also a good plug for Citibank credit cards. Sounds like they really do work.

But not so fast. Here's what the next commenter had to say:

Your situation was pretty simple, but the FTC says it takes on average 600 hours to get your life back to normal once your ID has been stolen. Your situation is more credit card fraud than ID Theft.

Ok, maybe that's the point we need to highlight -- the difference between some credit cards being stolen and someone's total ID. Maybe the former doesn't have to be that long, but the latter can be a real mess. Does this sound like a viable explanation?

For more on identity security, see these posts:

• Protect Against Net Threats

• Assessing Bank Safety

• Identity Theft is Worse than You Think It Is

• Don't Get Hooked by a Crook

Comments

[Kay]

We were in a similar situation -- buying a house for the first time in six years and during the new loan app process we found that my credit report had a deliquent account listed. An account I never opened in a city where I never lived. It took me seven months to convince all involved that it was someone other than me using my name and SSN to open the cell phone account. I had to deal -- repeatedly -- with the credit reporting agencies (two had the incorrect account; the third didn't ... is that good or bad?), the cell phone company that was scammed, the colleciton agency the account was turned over to (details in my blog entry, The Real Me). I stil l have no idea how this happened. And it was a relatively minor ID theft in the grand scheme of things. So I definitely feel for people who've had their IDs completely hijacked.

[Hawkmoon Nine]

Ok, maybe that's the point we need to highlight -- the difference between some credit cards being stolen and someone's total ID.

We didn't have our credit cards stolen though, our SSN's and other information were and then used to open credit at various stores. We still have to monitor our credit, make sure our SS statements are correct, and probably have to worry about other accounts somewhere. We were lucky because we found out so soon.