Lost personal information, steps to take.

miths · Post by **miths** » Wed Jan 05, 2011 4:10 am

Hi,

Posting in this sub-forum to increase the audience.

I am unable to find my personal hard drive which has various documents contains personal information like SSN, etc.,

To stop misusing SSN and other personal information, what preventive steps i can take.

one thing I heared is credit freeze so that no one can apply for new credit.

Can members throw some ideas on this.

Thanks & appreciate earliest response.

Regards,
Miths

Desi · Post by **Desi** » Wed Jan 05, 2011 8:09 am

http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10064.html

also, use the Google custome search above the nav bar in this forum page to search for threads on identity theft.

dester21khan · Post by **dester21khan** » Wed Jan 05, 2011 9:16 am

In my case, I have also been using deep freeze to protect my files and important documents.
So no even if anyone has misused it or deleted it.
If the PC is turned off everything is back.

miths · Post by **miths** » Wed Jan 05, 2011 11:35 am

Thanks Desi & Dester for the response.

I went through the above link and other resources. Based on these, decided to report to police on lost hard drive and get a report if they can provide. and then inform credit bereaus to freeze the credit, banks and card companies to reissue accounts.
Please share your thoughts.

Thanks again.

sertra · Post by **sertra** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 5:47 am

I would strongly recommend signing up with a credit monitoring service, at least for a few months.

rsr · Post by **rsr** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 7:49 pm

Not sure if you have solved your problem but I had a similar case with my email being hacked a few years ago. I reported it to the local police station and created a police report. Then called the credit agencies to put a 7 year credit freeze. You can call any one of the agency and they will call the other agencies. To place a 7 year freeze, they will need the police report. In addition, contact all your banks and inform them about it and have credit monitoring from any one of your banks. I used bank of america and they provide report from all the 3 agencies.

miths · Post by **miths** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 12:14 am

Thanks rsr for the response.
yea, i also did more or less same. I contacted 3 credit agencies asked them to put a freeze, but they didn't ask for any police report. But as a caution, I informed police, cop came and took the report and gave me report number. tracking credit report periodically.

rsr · Post by **rsr** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 6:55 pm

did they assign a detective to the case. If yes, get the detectives name and keep it. God forbid if something were to happen, you can contact the detective.

miths · Post by **miths** » Fri Jun 24, 2011 3:13 am

no, I don't think so. cop took the details from me and gave me report number. he didn't mention anything about detective.

ganapaty01 · Post by **ganapaty01** » Tue Jul 12, 2011 6:29 pm

Lets get real guys. Unless a case specifically deals with millions of $$, the case will not get any visibility. Given the fact that this is a white collar crime with low risk to life, there are more important crimes, although debatable, to focus energies on.

It is sad though that the only way out is to have a police case filed, fill out an ID theft dossier, submit a report with the ftc (i believe) and fight it out with the credit bureaus.

The Police case helps you because a) The bureaus generally charge you, in some states, to freeze your report. With a police report, they cannot charge.

b) In case, later down the line, you are stuck with a huge credit problem due to the theft, you have the police report to point back to and possibly get some reprieve.