So, you drive up to the fast food drive through, pay for your meal with your debit card, only to have the $5.00 charge declined.  WHAT?  You knew you had more than $5.00 in your account.  This is a true story that happened to me.  Someone had skimmed my debit card number, created a new card and went on a shopping spree.  The spree lasted about 30 minutes before my debit card issuer realized what was happening and shut off my account.  Fortunately my account didn’t go into the negative, and after filing fraud charges with the bank, all the charges were reversed.  However, many ID theft cases have been much worse.  If you have reason to believe that your identity has been stolen, here’re a few things to do:

1. File a police report – Many times to have your identity restored, charges reimbursed, bad credit removed from your credit report, you will need third party validation that your identity has been compromised.  Also, to eventually file charges against the perpetrators, law enforcement will need to know of actual victims.
2. File a complaint with the FTC – you can do that here
3. Obtain a copy of your credit report from http://www.annualcreditreport.com/ to know the extent of the theft.
4. Notify the financial institutions that your identity has been compromised and ask them to put a stop on your account.  Most financial institutions have fraud prevention stops in place and will probably know that you’ve been a victim of fraud before you do.
5. In extreme cases, you can put a credit freeze with all three credit bureaus to stop any applications of credit.  Bad thing is that not only does it stop the thieves, it stops you as well.  There will be no more “instant credit” at stores offering specials for credit cards.  Each time you wish to obtain credit you will need to call the credit bureaus to lift the freeze.

Up next:  What to do to prevent identity theft