Facing Unfair Business Practices? We connect you with qualified Consumer Lawyer specializing in debt collection, product liability, identity theft.
Most people file an FTC report because someone told them to. Fewer people know why it actually matters — that the ten minutes you spend on IdentityTheft.gov unlocks legal rights you don’t have without it. An FTC report isn’t a complaint that sits in a file somewhere. It’s a sworn statement to a federal law…
Your Social Security number doesn’t expire. It doesn’t reset. Once it’s out there, it’s out there for good — which is exactly why it’s the single most valuable piece of paper a criminal can get their hands on. Social Security identity theft happens when someone gets your nine-digit number and uses it as if it…
You’re staring at the intake form and there’s a blank line asking for your Social Security number. Most people fill it in without thinking twice. You don’t have to. For almost every medical provider in the country, there’s no law requiring it — and handing it over anyway just gives a data breach more to…
You found the bill, the EOB, or the denial letter — and none of it matches anything you actually did. Now what matters is order. Do things in the wrong sequence and you’ll spend months chasing your own paperwork. Here’s the order that actually works, including one escalation step almost nobody tells victims about. Do…
There’s no single move that stops medical identity theft cold. But two legal tools do more work than everything else on this list combined, and almost nobody knows they exist. One lets you pull a free report on your medical-insurance history once a year. The other forces your provider to tell you exactly who your…
Medical identity theft happens when someone uses your name, Social Security number, health insurance information or Medicare number to get medical care, prescription drugs or equipment, or to submit insurance claims without your permission. You may find out through a bill for a hospital visit you never made, an insurance statement for a prescription you…
Start with a free credit report from all three bureaus at AnnualCreditReport.com, which now lets you pull one from each bureau every single week at no cost. But here’s what almost no guide tells you: a real loan can exist in your name and never show up there at all. Payday loans, many installment loans,…
If someone filed an unemployment claim using your Social Security number, report it to the state workforce agency that received the claim, request a corrected IRS Form 1099-G, report the theft at IdentityTheft.gov, and report only the unemployment income you actually received when you file your federal tax return. You do not need to know…
Place a fraud alert on your credit report. That’s the single best action, and it’s worth doing before you’ve confirmed anything, before you know how bad it is, and before you’ve called anyone else. It’s free, it takes one phone call, it covers all three credit bureaus at once, and it forces any lender to…