There are just times in our lives when we just can not afford to sign up for a credit monitoring service, we understand this very well. So what can you do to keep your identity safe?
The first thing I would recommend doing is head over to Annual Credit Report.com and order a copay of your credit reports. You can order your credit reports for free once every 12 months from this site. Annual Credit Report.com was made possible by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, which made it possible for consumers to get a credit report from all three bureaus once per year.
Once you have all three credit reports, take a good look at them and find anything that is inaccurate or suspicious. For inaccurate information write a letter to each of the three credit bureaus and explain to them that the information provided on your credit report in wrong and you would like to have it removed. They are obligated by law to research the items in question and have them removed.
If you find something that looks suspicious you will want to contact the company that is reporting the suspicious activity. For example there may be a credit card account that you have no record of. You will want to contact the card provider, and find out when it was opened, and by who. If it was not you, you will want to have it removed and ask them to provide you a letter saying the account is closed, and that you were not the one who opened it. Once you get the letter from the card issuers you will once again want to contact all three bureaus and have this account completely wiped from your credit history.
Next thing you will want to do is to make sure you are very diligent about destroying any pieces of paper that contain your personal data such as your social security number, address, and home phone number! These pieces of information could be used to open account up in your name.
You will also want to protect your online identity. Make sure to change your passwords at least once per month. Make sure to use a strong password, one that contains both upper and lower case letters, and one that uses numbers.
In addition to your free credit reports from Annual Credit Report.com I highly recommend you purchase your credit reports at least once per quarter, that way you can have a much better chance of spotting identity theft, and taking the steps any thefts before they become a huge mess and consume much of your precious time and resources fighting.
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