Dealing with Fraud or Identity Theft Advice If you found out any fucked up unauthorized withdrawals in your assets, it's time to race to your institutions for recovery of damages, countermeasures, and change to linked information registrations. It will be a bitch. You will see a statement regarding unauthorized withdrawal. Take note of each offending transaction. You should be allowed a phone number to take a look at other offending transactions not noted in your statement. Take a note regarding that audio recording. Report the claims of unauthorized withdrawals to the institution(s). You'll have to get your documents involved ready. Burn off all your damn checks, hope you got a burn pot ready, stir to burn. Remember to update information in the relevant parameters/institutions. However, if you are about to apply automatic transactions to an account, hold off until you get through most of the process. It's not over until the fat lady sings! After that, do the following below. Request an initial 90 days fraud alert or active duty alert for 90 days (you may request another initial 90 days fraud alert or active duty alert by submitting a new request within 30 days of your current alert expiring. [if you need help remembering, try noting the months of March, June, September, and December]): https://fraud.transunion.com/fa/fraudAlert/landingPage.jsp https://www.alerts.equifax.com/AutoFraud_Online/jsp/fraudAlert.jsp Equifax is getting bitchy on information shit, must be the fail on fraud Request an post 90 days fraud alert or active duty alert for post 90 days (identity and address documentation required, also a valid police report, law enforcement agency report, or US Postal service report that allege mail theft): https://fraud.transunion.com/fa/fraudAlert/landingPage.jsp https://www.alerts.equifax.com/AutoFraud_Online/pdf/Fraud_Alert_7.pdf https://www.annualcreditreport.com/requestReport/requestForm.action Fill out your personal information form, maybe pick Equifax incorporated (Experian public limited company sucks dick on printing compatibility and too risky in showing too much details regarding credit [should certain of your personal information been compromised], no save options either, TransUnion company is trans-sexual on slow loading, yet safer?; it's gotta be Equifax for failing tradition and steadfast practice) consumer credit reporting agency to find your free credit report (credit score not included [it looks like just a loan trust rating, nothing else?]), otherwise, you will have to go through three expanses of territory. Do a personal information test. Review your credit report, save, and print a hard copy. Delete all data from browser. Also, I want to say that anyone with the right sesame can access to credit information as well. Yes, quite the bitch. Not sure whether to advise if to read up often or not. Keep guard though! You will need that hard copy for the police, save a (soft) copy to yourself. Yes, bring your documents involved again. For me, they were quite the disappointment, but maybe, they do something besides filing a report (with no copies of my documents). Okay, maybe, I need an official report document. Head onward to http://www.identitytheft.gov/. Some of these .gov sites are state-of-the-art tech, so you might need a more recently built computer client equipment/web_browser to navigate their techy interface. You have to sort through all kinds of bullshit (personal information included). This is where your spread out documents come in handy. When you get through the process, the report should be exclusively circulate with law enforcement, other government agencies, consumer reporting agencies, and companies involved with the fraud or identity theft. After reporting, your might have to do some prevention methods. Time to do more jumping through the loops/hoops of more reporting to a few more institution! It's on you and your call to keep yourself covered (government people, government), the http://www.identitytheft.gov/ report focuses only on case. Before I go on, I have to elaborate about the need to use a computer client equipment that peruses hard copy printing, especially if you can finally get the cops to do something about it. Okay, we need a fucking summary. The credit reporting agencies and annual credit report(s) deal with the matter of past transactions. The http://www.identitytheft.gov/ deals with the incident(s) of identity theft and recovery plan from damages. Boy, this site got a high hardware requirement! You need to do some time for the filing too. Be back about it. Now, we are on credit validation agencies (actually, check acceptance, check processing, and risk analytics services), which deal with the matter of future transactions. That's where the determinate prediction of risks and all that takes place. Head over here, https://www.firstdata.com/telecheck/telecheck-forgery-identity-theft.html (or http://www.firstdata.com/downloads/thought-leadership/TSIForgery_IdentityTheftDeclaration.pdf ), you will start your report of forgery, counterfeiting, or identity theft to the TeleCheck service agency. Read the instructions on the page (I would tell you on this file, but there's so many various ways that I can't comprehend the details); or, if you want, download the TeleCheck Forgery Identity Theft Affidavit .pdf text file. If you are using the file, sign whatever you can in the forms. Mail the forms to the given address (noted on either page or form). You're done (yeah, it took me a couple of weeks getting through this 'read in between the lines' bullshit. Seriously, this part to figure out is difficult). Also, if you want to dispute TeleCheck information, file for bankruptcy, or even request a TeleCheck file report, feel free to look around the site. I MYSELF AM INTERESTED IN THE TELECHECK FILE REPORT, BUT WILL WAIT FOR TELECHECK TO CONTACT BACK IN OVER 30 TO 45 DAYS (ALTHOUGH I AM NOT SURE WHAT IS A COPY OF A VOIDED CHECK, I CURRENTLY CONCERN MYSELF WITH THE DOCUMENTS INVOLVED WITH THE FRAUD OR IDENTITY THEFT INCIDENT [I'M GONNA CALL THEM TO SEE IF A COPY OF A FALSE/FRAUDULENT CHECK WORKS {I'M NOT LOOKING FOR A REINVESTIGATION/DISPUTE OVER INACCURATE/INCOMPLETE INFORMATION, BUT DO WANT THE PAPER WORK FROM THE AGENCY JUST TO BE HANDY IN THE FUTURE; I WILL WRITE THAT DOWN IN THE CALL/LETTER.}]). Apparently, the http://www.identitytheft.gov/ is a bit coo-coo with the smartphone clients too. I don't know why. I be back. Okay, somehow, I was not able to get the follow up letters for the involved organizations. However, I can get my identity theft report. Guess I have to submit that instead. Of course, you need a hard copy, plus the credit report, plus the documents proving unauthorized withdrawal statements for the police first. You will wait a long time because there are other emergency cases happening on the spot. That doesn't mean a bunch of people stopped trying to fuck you up! Me, I waited until after closing hours! Fuck! Report what you need to report when you finally have an officer willing to help you. Not all of your claims will process, depending on the situation. Society! Bureaucracy! Ask them if the involved organizations should receive it though (unfortunately, it's not their department to say otherwise!). Maybe, submit another hard copy to the organization. At least at this time, you should obtain a copy of the crime report. Thought I was moving forward, felt confused. WTF? *crickets* ??? FOLLOW UP INQUIRES REQUIRE SOME CALLER REPRESENTATIVE TIME! ??? Update! Sometimes, there are certain dynamic cultures going on in the work place (or even the fucking area). If you happened to be aware of this and the situation is going volatite, I suggest to move your ass else where! They get punishing for any imaginary conception. It won't get any easier, end, of, story. Here's how to do it. You have to send any application related to your new account (it's for good customer-business relations and might reflect on you in the future), but also try to send both the identity theft report and crime report. They'll probably tell you to hold onto the documents. Hold onto your deposits and try to make another bank account for it first (or that's what one of my relative says [I say research good enough] *sighs*). Try to close sub accounts involved with your main affected account. By that time after, report any new fraudulent claims, but also request to transfer your assets to your new account with that different bank. You should have safe assets and if there's a wire a tapping, I believe that you got insurance. Hopefully, your new situation would be more law-abiding and insuring. If you were indeed a victim of identity theft or fraud, it's time to now apply for a extended fraud alert (once again, please use Equifax incorporated, you do help yourself that way). I wouldn't go with credit freeze unless the damage is exceedingly dire. HOWEVER, extended fraud alert requires a valid police report, law enforcement agency report, or US Postal service report that allege mail theft. Basically, you need a report from the police or some law enforcement agency (who that, ask the police [also ask them that you are trying to complete a extended fraud alert application]). | Request an post 90 days fraud alert or active duty alert for post 90 days (identity and address documentation required, also a valid police report, law enforcement agency report, or US Postal service report that allege mail theft): https://fraud.transunion.com/fa/fraudAlert/landingPage.jsp https://www.alerts.equifax.com/AutoFraud_Online/pdf/Fraud_Alert_7.pdf Other than the focus on fraud and identity theft, you might need to prevent identity/informational damage/threat exposure by external parties. This is to keep you a step safe from the matter of intelligence. https://dmachoice.thedma.org/, to opt out of marketing offers by email/mail. I cannot stress enough about the email. There's some super techy possibilities as the news say the incidences are becoming rampant. Cut down on the mail too. Sorting through bullshit required. https://www.optoutprescreen.com/ (requires recently built computer client equipment/web_browser), to opt out of credit card exposure offers solicitations (supposedly by mailing address), which exposes your damn information. It's like mail, but too sensitive and needs to be put down. Sorting through bullshit required. Whether you use a new or old computer client equipment, always clear cache, clear history, clear all cookie data, clear form data, and clear passwords after reporting, even if you are not finished with a process. For mail and (personal information) stuff written on hard copy, I suggest to use a metal scouring pad to scour the information from the wetted paper, layer by layer. That should work. If you have something to say about prevention, I am not entirely sure with the entire process. Hey, I'm human. --- It's not recovery or fraud alert maintenance, but approaching new territories of possible fraud. When meeting on new business or charity, you got to know if they don't go fucking crazy with numbers. This is particularly true for searching the credibility of both online and offline businesses. https://www.wikihow.com/Find-if-a-Website-Is-Legitimate Using a Google Transparency Report You can use the safety rating by Google. However, Google is a search engine with its own agenda to serve. If there's a chance where it can turn a blind eye, well, don't screw yourself over! https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/safebrowsing/diagnostic/index.html Using Virus Total This is probably better than Google. You have multiple security vendors, than just Google, to help you out a bit. Still, should a matter of interests arise, the risk of a vendor going bad may steep significantly. You may need specialized law enforcement agencies to deal with these kind of issues. Good thing there are multiple vendors to review findings in terms of accountability. After all that mess, you can search urls and files for something suspicious in detection, details, links, and community. https://www.virustotal.com/ Using the Better Business Bureau I like this, it's probably older than Google and Virus Total, at least from a organization point of view. This is the law enforcement to check if businesses, both online and offline are up to no good. This is the true countermeasure against fraud. It might not be a expert on cybercrime nor malware, but fraud is usually the premise of such attacks to come. 1. Type the suspected website's url in the page's 'Find' search bar. If it is a offline business, use the proper name as cited. 2. Remove all string type value in the page's 'Near' search bar. If it is a offline business, use the proper location as cited. 3. Activate search with the set parameter's value. 4. Examine the business in question. Check out the Business Profile, see if the business title matches up with your own personal online/offline investigation. Check out the Contact Information, see if it matches up or not. Check out the Business Information, see if something's fucked up or not right. Check out the BBB Rating & Accreditation, see if ratings scale with your sense of judgment and (consumer/investor) confidence. Check out the Customer Complaints, see what the complaints boil down to. Check out the Customer Reviews, see what the reviews boil down to. Put all the information in scale to weigh against your interest with the business in question. Make your final verdict about your possible commerce/judicial/legal with the business in question.