You receive your credit card statement, or bank statement, and notice a charge you do not know or did not understand. If it is not a mistake by the Credit Card Company or bank and no one else has made a purchase, then this has happened.

Unfortunately, you have become a victim of identity theft and now you have to recover your identity and rebuild your credit.  This is the first time that this has happened to you and you are not sure where to start doing these two important things, especially recovering your identity.

Remember, do not panic.  This is the worse thing to do in this situation because it could make you take actions that are not all that useful.  Even though it is not easy, try to remain calm and be prepared to fight to get your identity back.  Do not expect “instant” miracles because it may take a long time before everything is back to normal.

Here are some steps to help you recover your identity.

1.    Find out which areas of your life are going to be affected by the identity theft.

2.    Contact your Credit Card Companies, bank, and Loan Company that you have quite possibility become a victim of identity theft.

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High tech identity theft is representative of the more sophisticated identity thief.  This particular identity thief has methods that are more covert.  This makes them harder to respond to or detect.  The area that they center their attention on is the area where the consumer has the least control over their personal information.  This area is where most of the identity theft law addresses.

These laws, which include HIPAA and FACTA, focus on three key areas of record keeping.

• How your records are stored
• How your records are accessed
• How your records are disposed of.

These identity theft laws require the training of the people that handle your personal information.  Most businesses do not even know about these laws nor do they know what they need to do to comply with them.    There are written policies about how companies/businesses, are to handle persona information and how to dispose of the information.

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If you are a victim of identity theft filing an Identity Theft Report is essential to making sure that you have the most legal options available as you work to remove the unauthorized purchases from your account and restore your credit.  The credit reporting companies and the businesses involved with the identity theft need certain details to be able to verify that you have been a victim of identity theft and an Identity Theft Report provides those details.  A printed copy of your Identity Theft Report should be kept on hand throughout the process of straightening your credit out; usually credit card companies and the credit reporting agencies will one to have a copy on file for your record.

Filing an Identity Theft Report ensures that the credit reporting companies permanently block fraudulent information from appearing on your credit report.  This is the strongest action that you can take to help protect your credit record and your credit score.  Also filing an Identity Theft Report with the police makes sure that the debts do not reappear on your credit report at some later date.  One of the biggest hassles that can result from identity theft are debt collection agencies contacting you to try to collect debts for purchases that you never made and filing an Identity Theft Report puts an end to that as well.

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You are a victim of identity theft; one of the first steps you need to take is to place a fraud alert on your credit report. How does this help you?  A fraud alert identifies to organizations that view your credit report that you have been a victim of identity theft.  Placing a fraud alert only requires calling one of the three agencies that monitors credit scores; once you have the fraud alert added with one agency it will automatically be added by the other two.  Make sure to receive a confirmation from the company that you call that the fraud alert has been placed on the credit report.  Once an initial fraud alert has been place don your credit report it requires that creditors take extra steps to verify your identity before issuing credit in your name, and this initial fraud alert stays on your credit report for at least 90 days.

If the fraud is very serious you can obtain an extended fraud alert which remains on your credit report for seven years.  In order to obtain the extended fraud alert you must have the police file an Identity Theft Report.  The benefit of the extended fraud alert is that a creditor has to actually contact you or meet you in person before credit can be extended.  Consumers with extended fraud alerts on their credit reports can obtain two free credit reports within 12 months of having the extended fraud alert added to their credit report to verify that there is no new suspicious activity.  One thing that you can do when you receive your two free credit reports is to look for inquiries from creditors that you did not seek to obtain credit from.

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Identity theft is not just a financial issue for many people. When you are the victim of an id theft, you will likely go through a wide range of emotions as you attempt to get your life back to some level of normalcy. If you are still in the beginning stages of regaining your identity, you need to take a few immediate steps to be sure the recovery process goes as smoothly as possible.

The first thing you will want to do is to contact your local law enforcement. Do this as soon as possible to ensure that the thief is caught before they can do too much damage. The reason that this is so important is that the police will be the ones to write a special report to document the issue. If there are any questions in the future you will want to have this paper to show to credit and other companies to prove you are telling them the truth.

If you did not have credit protection, you will want to contact your credit card companies to let them know what happened. They will cancel the credit cards that were stolen and issue you new ones. Even if you just had your number stolen and not the actual card, this is very important.

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