Table of Contents
Chapter 1: IDENTITY THEFT ON THE RISE
Chapter 2: THE PROBLEM AHEAD
Chapter 3: WHY YOU’RE SET UP TO FAIL
Chapter 4: TOP 5 ERRORS
Chapter 5: LOCATING IDENTITY THEFT ACCOUNTS
Chapter 6: CREDIT FREEZE AND ALERTS
LET’S START FIXING
Chapter 7: GETTING A POLICE REPORT
Chapter 8: WHAT ARE THE STEPS TO TAKE?
Chapter 9: WHEN THE RESULTS COME IN
Chapter 10: WHAT IF IT’S NOT REMOVED?
Chapter 11: THINGS TO AVOID
Chapter 12: THE FAIR CREDIT REPORTING ACT
BONUS: COLLECTION CALLS ON ID THEFT ACCOUNTS
Template 1: Dispute Letter to Equifax
Template 2: Dispute Letter to Experian
Template 3: Dispute Letter to Trans Union
Template 4: Dispute Letter to False Account Business
Template 5: Dispute Letter to False Account Debt Collector
Warning: This is not to be considered legal advice. No legal representation exists by virtual of buying or reading this book.
Please seek an attorney if you have any legal questions or concerns.
Chapter 1:
IDENTITY THEFT ON THE RISE
The more our lives move fully online as a society, the more opportunities will exist for someone to steal your identity.
That doesn’t mean that life ends.
If you understand the concepts in this book, you won’t have a problem. You just have to follow the steps, and let the law put you in a position of strength if it ever happens again.
If you following the steps in this book, you will either have a clean report or you will have the opportunity to file a legal claim against the business and credit bureaus for damages and make them pay for your lawyer directly.
Most people contemplate not doing anything. Trust me, that’s the wrong direction. The economic effect it has on you is bigger than you think.
Many people think they can wait it out or that it will just go away.
It will not. In fact, I would contend that if someone stole your identity, they will continue to open bad accounts for you until you have no available credit. When the day comes that you do have more credit, they will attempt to take it again.
Therefore, you MUST take action.
In this book, I hope to help you find identify identity theft accounts and the steps you must take to force their hand to fix it. Then, we will review how to properly read the results to see if they’ve removed the bad account. Finally, we will cover your rights and what to do if they refuse to remove the account that you say is not yours.
As a small bonus, I’ve included a section about how to stop the collection calls and why they may actually owe you money for calling you in the first place.
Finally, I’ve included some example templates and forms to use to send into the credit bureaus and the other businesses.
Let’s do this.
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Take Away The potential for identity theft increases each day.
Take Away Take the right steps, and you can fix it every time.
CHAPTER 2
THE PROBLEM AHEAD
The problem is simple, and you already know it:
You have an account on your credit report that’s not yours. You may or not have taken some steps before today. That’s great.
However, if you are reading this, it is because they didn’t fix the problem, haven’t fixed it yet or you’re not sure what to do.
Why won’t they fix it sometimes?
Is it that:
They don’t take much time reviewing your file? That they don’t review all of the information? That they don’t believe you? It’s cheaper to not believe you? It’s highly unlikely you would learn the law on this? The odds are in their favor that you just quit and go away? Is it all of the above?
Regardless of why they didn’t fix it, you must understand that there are rules. There is a law that can help you, but you have to take very specific steps or it doesn’t work.
The law is the Fair Credit Reporting Acting. We will show you those steps in this book to force everyone’s hand to finally listen to you and remove the bad accounts.
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IMPORTANT: If you follow the steps in this book and the issue is not corrected, you should seek legal advice because you may have a very valuable case. Also, what is not fixed after taking the right steps will most likely never be fixed without filing a legal claim.
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Take Away The likelihood of the error not being fixed when you do the right thing is quite high.
Take Away Therefore, it is mandatory that YOU take the RIGHT steps and document it.