Fourth Step: The Credit Bureaus

     With a renewed purpose and feeling like progress had been made I set out in contact the other two credit bureaus Equifax and Experian. Not expecting much more than I received from TranUnion I was surprised by a simple electronic system for placing the fraud alert on your account from both Equifax and Experian. The links to place the fraud alert are always displayed in the smallest print on the bottom of the sites, but with my research I already had the information. The biggest caveat is that the fraud alert is only for 90 days and you need to manually renew it unless you go through an number of manual steps to make it last for 7 years. I think that this should be a requirement for them to provide automatically as it will only cut down on the rampant fraud, or at least make it last for a year. What a fraud alert does is place a note on the credit report that requires the credit bureau to call the number you register and verify your identity and approval before anyone can pull a credit report and  no credit report means no credit account. The links to setup the Fraud Alerts are below.

Experian:
https://www.experian.com/consumer/cac/FCRegistration.do?alertType=INITIAL_ALERT

Equifax:
https://www.alerts.equifax.com/AutoFraud_Online/jsp/fraudAlert.jsp

    The difference that I found between Experian and Equifax is that Experian included a credit report when you placed a fraud alert automatically and equifax required you to request it separately. The credit report that I received from Experian was alarming because it had a few inquires to organizations that I know I didn't do. I am a little frustrated from the fact that my last inquiry on my report before the 6 I had between 8/9 and 8/11 was last July 2009 when I refinanced my mortgage. 6 reports in 3 days should have sent up a red flag somewhere, but it seems like the responsibility for oversight is on the credit lenders themselves not on the bureaus that actually have the data. Maybe there are protocols that I am unaware of, but it seems like the credit bureaus should have a responsibility or a system for notifying you without you having to sign up and pay for a service. I now have a starting point, but at the same time an unnerving feeling that with the number of lookups on my credit report and Discover was not even one of the them, there are going to be a number of accounts that I didn't open out there.

     Now my priorities have shifted to acquiring the rest of my credit reports and reviewing the inquires to compile a list of credit card companies I need to call to see if a card was opened in my name.

Task Completed:

1. Placed Fraud Alert on my Trans Union credit report
2. Called local police to start the process of filing a police report.
3. Researched google to figure out next step.
4. Placed Fraud Alerts on Equifax and Experian and reviewed a my first credit report

Third Step: Consult the All Mighty Google

     Having followed the steps provided by Discover and not really getting any further down the path I did what everyone does when they have a question that need to be answered consult the Google for my next steps. Rapidly scanning through everything from FTC.gov to countless adds for credit monitoring and identity theft prevention services it became apparent that for basic information I do not have to pay for a credit report from each of the bureaus, but in order to have the data consolidated you need to shell out some money.
    
     The next several hours I spent researching all of my different options and I have to admit that finding any reliable feedback on any of them was very challenging. The review sites that I found from google were divided between sites that did a good job trying to make them seem impartial, but if you read through all of the sites' reviews none of them had anything to really say and were just blatant affiliate sites trying to make money, to the obvious sites that might as well have just been run by the vendor themselves.  If you search on any of the actual companies you will mainly find news articles about how much of a rip-off each service is which is most likely true, but like any other review on the web you have to figure in the simple fact that they wrote the review was because they were angry about something and there is always a disproportionate number of angry motivated people then happy motivated people.
    
     Despite this being the most time intensive exercise it did yield some of the most valuable information and at least gave me my next steps of contacting all of the credit bureaus to file fraud alert to and then getting a full credit report from all three bureaus and reviewing any recent inquires or new accounts on my report.

Task Completed:

1. Placed Fraud Alert on my Trans Union credit report
2. Called local police to start the process of filing a police report
3. Researched google to figure out next step 

Second Step: File Police Report

     The second step as instructed by Sandy from Discover was to file a police report. I was hoping that this step would leave me with a more positive feeling than calling TransUnion, as that did nothing much except prepare me for the blatant profiteering in the identity theft prevention industry. Not to spoil the rest of step two, but lets just say it didn't or it hasn't.
    
     Feeling utterly disgusted from my call to TransUnion I needed to have that address or some way to start tracking the unsub (Criminal Minds) so I started by calling my local police department. I looked up the directory and while they have tons of tips on how to prevent identity theft there is no, "Call this number to file a report" which would be a nice to have in all that information, but maybe I just missed it. I called the main number and told them what Discover told me to do. The operator asked me where did the identity theft take place? I understand that that is a standard question, but I had just told her that someone applied for a credit card in my name so how in the world would I know where it happened. Discover would not give me any address so as far as I know it could have happened anywhere. Fortunately my need for information trumped my ever present sarcasm and I played along and ended up being transferred to the local zone where I live.
    
     Like shampoo (wash, rinse, repeat) I am replaying the story to be asked the same question about where it happened, only to be put on hold for a few minutes while I am assuming they were trying to figure out what to do with me. The operator returned and informed me that I would be contact by an officer over the phone to take a report within the next 24 to 48 hrs. Not wanting to argue with someone that obviously had little to do with that decision, I gave them my contact information.
    
     We are approaching 24hrs and I have not heard from anyone nor from my further research do I expect to get a great deal of information or even have them investigate it. I will update post when I hear back from them....

Task Completed:

1. Placed Fraud Alert on my TransUnion credit report
2. Called local police to start the process of filing a police report

First Step: TransUnion

     The first step that Sandy from Discover Card told me to do was call TransUnion and put a fraud alert on my account There are three major credit bureaus Equifax, Experian, and Transunion in the whose job it is to track our credit history and help define our credit worthiness to potential creditors. Why we need to have three is beyond me as it just makes everything more difficult and costly, but I guess that's capitalism so I prefer that to having a single bureau system or something managed by the government...
     I will discuss the other two bureaus later in the story, so I want to focus on TransUnion as that was my first call as directed by Sandy. The number 1-800-680-7289 is an automated system that is the only way TransUnion allows you to electronically apply a fraud alert to your credit file which is the first step you need to take. So after going through the prompts and entering in all of my information they then try to sell you on their credit monitoring service before they allow you to complete the call. It is an extremely long message that you have to listen to and then select (1) I want it or (2) I do not want. At this point I didn't know enough to figure out if I needed to pay a monthly fee for some service so I selected (2). I was then appalled by the second sales pitch using both scare and guilt to try to get me to buy their product again. It is another long message that I then had to hit no again. This made me sick to think of how many consumers they have scared into purchasing a service at a very vulnerable time and you know that the only reason they ask twice is because it must work. I will be filing a complaint with both the BBB and the FTC as I feel that in their message it makes it seem like in order to protect yourself you need to sign-up for their service which is false. It is completely free to put a fraud alert on your credit file and 3rd party companies are no longer able to do it for you so even if you pay for lifelock or similar service you still need to do this important step yourself.

Task Completed So Far:

1. Placed Fraud Alert on my TransUnion credit report (at least I think I have, but I didn't buy their service so I am not sure)

Background:

      My name is Bradley Dick and yesterday I found out that my indentity had been stolen. At 4:24pm yesterday my wife received a call from Discover that they need to speak to me about an application that appeared to be fraudulent. They would only speak to me so my wife emailed me the contact information and the case number. Being the security conscious individual I consulted the all might Google to see if the number they left is legit and I also call discover fraud directly and they validated it was their new card fraud department. Since I did a search on google and just about everyone that had a post about this number thought it was a scam, I can assure you that 1-800-347-3072 is a real Discover card fraud number so it is legit.
     I called the number and was able to speak to someone rather quickly. Her name was Sandy and she was helpful. The reference number they left for my wife was not valid so they looked it up by my name and the last 4 of my social. They verified that someone had applied for a Discover Card but did not use my home address so it was flagged and denied. She refused to give me the address that was used or any of the information but gave me a number and told me that law enforcement would be able to get the information. Despite every attempt she was not going to give me the information and make my search easy but at least she gave me the next step in the puzzle down the proverbial rabbit hole to my own private wonderland. This is where my story begins