Identity Theft Not that Big of a Deal (And What to Do If You're a Victim)

After writing several posts on identity theft, I penned Identity Theft Statistics, Part 1, How Much Money Does the Typical Victim of Identity Theft Lose? to discuss how much the typical victim loses when identity theft happens to him/her. On this post, I received two surprising comments. I had always thought that one of the major hassles of your identity being stolen was that it took hours and hours (if not days and even weeks) to correct. After all, we've all heard the horror stories, right? Well, these two commenters paint a different picture. Here's the first:

I was the victim of identity theft last year. The balance charged in my name was around $600, and it took about 3 hours to get everything straightened out with all of my creditors and the Big Three reporting agencies.

Of those three hours, I don't think a single second was spent during "worthwhile" time. It was all early evening hours when I would have just been watching Jeopardy. I certainly didn't have to adjust my schedule or work or miss a beat there. Everyone I needed to talk to was available 24/7 or close to it.

I think identity theft is so common these days that the powers that be have really streamlined the process for correcting it.

Maybe it is so common that companies have handling it down to a science, but this was a real surprise to me.

The process was even easier for the next commenter:

I was a victim of identity theft a few years ago. Whoever stole my identity wasn't able to charge anything. I spent about an hour contacting the three credit bureaus. It was a hassle but not that big of a deal.

Ok, color me very surprised.

I guess the learning here is that identity theft doesn't necessarily sentence you to an extended trip to financial purgatory. And as far as what to do if you're a victim, it appears the best bet is to act fast and contact the credit bureaus and your credit companies. If that happens, the process can be not that bad at all.

How about the rest of you -- anyone else out there who's had his/her identity stolen. Was it easy or hard to get corrected? Any tips for the rest of us?

Comments

[Hawkmoon Nine]

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.

[Ray]

Identity theft is a crime and refers to all types of crime in which someone wrongfully obtains and uses another person's personal data in some way that involves fraud or deception, typically for economic gain.

[Sean Matteson]

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. Look at this article:

http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?S=5161795&nav=8h3xwlva

Sean Matteson
www.defendmyid.net