Make Sure Identity Theft Doesn’t Damage Your Credit Rating

It’s bad enough if you end up in some financial difficulties yourself and harm your credit rating, but if someone steals your identity and you end up with a bad credit rating without doing anything yourself, that can be very annoying and extremely inconvenient. Not only that, it’s becoming increasingly common, as we leave details of our identities in more and more places.

So how can you prevent this? Well, first of all, you should keep an eye on your credit rating by getting a credit report, available for free as a service which must be provided by law through a website set up by the three large credit reporting agencies in the United States. You can check this once per year without paying any charges, although if you have any suspicions that your identity could be stolen, it would also pay to get additional checks.

If you see information on your credit check that you think is wrong, and could be the result of identity theft, then make sure you send a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission. Remember that you’re the one who cares about your credit rating the most, so unfortunately it’s up to you to make the effort to check on suspicious looking results.

There are also numerous safeguards to try and prevent identity theft in the first place. The most important details to protect are your social security, bank account, credit card and PIN numbers, so be sure you don’t leave any details of these where someone might see them. Be extra careful and you might prevent a problem with your credit rating before it begins.

image credit: sxc

Tags: credit card | personal finance | security