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Why You Need to Protect Yourself
The effects of identity theft are long reaching. Many
people have difficulty proving their innocence. You may
have to contend with delinquent bills or bankruptcies
that were filed in your name. You will probably be
facing unauthorized charges. You may have lawsuits filed
against you.
Unfortunately, judges and the courts aren’t very
sympathetic. When they hear cases every day involving
violent crimes and brutal attacks, identity theft
doesn’t sound that bad. As we discussed earlier, there
are very few laws about identity theft, which makes
receiving any help from the legal system very unlikely.
What would you do if a judge ignored your problem?
What will you do when the Police Department says “I am
sorry but there is nothing we can do”. Who would you
turn to? Who can clean up the mess? Think your credit
card company will? Forget it. An attorney? You’d better
have a lot of money; attorneys don’t come cheap.
The stress and anxiety associated with identity theft
are real. As a matter of fact, many people suffer long
term health consequences as a result of the stress
induced by identity theft.
A woman from Berkeley, California had her name, birth
date and SSN from her insurance paperwork stolen in 1999
by the receptionist at her doctor’s office. For the next
three years, the thief used the woman’s name to rent an
apartment, get cable, buy a cell phone, open credit card
accounts and apply for other lines of credit. The
imposter was able to steal more than $15,000 worth of
goods.
The woman spent more than a year trying to clear her
name, but there were several items she was not able to
correct on her credit report.
Creditors, collection agencies and even credit reporting
agencies are often unresponsive to consumer requests to
clear their names, so many consumer find they aren’t
able to clear their names entirely despite their best
efforts.
In this particular case the woman’s credit dropped more
than 100 points, and she was unable to repair it
completely. The damage on her reports may stay for as
many as 7-10 years.
Think you can clear up your account and just be done
with it? Think again. In many cases fraudulent accounts
have to be cleaned up more than 3 times due to the
inadequate response from creditors and reporting
agencies. There are even some cases in which victims
found new accounts were opened even after a fraud alert
was filed because creditors simply ignored the alerts.
Beyond the financial and time impact, many victims find
themselves suffering from depression after fighting for
years to clean up their credit without avail. Think
about how frustrated you get when a store won’t accept a
simple return or you can’t figure out how to follow some
simple government process, then multiply that by 100!
While we would love to give more instructions on how to
survive after your identity is stolen, it is very
difficult because it involves so many factors for each
individual. There is no generic solution.
The reality is everyone is either on a pre-identity
theft restoration plan or a post-identity theft
restoration plan. Our research tells us that post-theft
identity restoration is very expensive and time
consuming. We did find a reputable company that will
restore your identity but the fees start at about $1,500
per incident. If you are completely stuck, frustrated,
and out of time,
email us and we can provide a referral.
The much smarter option is to evaluate identity theft
protection options now and implement a pre-theft
protection plan. Make sure the plan can help address, as
much as possible, all 5 areas of identity theft we have
defined in this book:
We strongly recommend that you DO NOT SETTLE FOR WHAT
THE CREIT CARD COMPANIES PROVIDE! Our research did not
find any credit card company offerings that were
comprehensive enough to justify the fee.
We conducted exhaustive research
on this topic. For information on our findings you can :
E-mail us for an identity theft protection referral
Or
Visit our recommended identity theft protection service
provider.
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