 TITLE: Should You File a Police Report After Identity Theft? CONTENT: Steps to Take if You're a Victim of identity Theft\n--------------------------------------------------\nIf you believe you're a victim of identity theft, follow these steps:\n1.  Call the impacted businesses. If you know how your information was used, call the relevant financial institutions or companies and ask for the fraud department. Inform them that your identity was stolen and ask that any accounts be closed or frozen.\n2.  Check your credit report and request a fraud alert. Review your credit report to look for any new accounts or transactions you don't recognize. Additionally, place a free one-year fraud alert on your credit report so others cannot open a credit account in your name. Fraud alerts require creditors to take extra steps to verify your identity. Once you place a fraud alert with one of the three national consumer credit bureaus (Experian, TransUnion or Equifax), the other two will be notified and will also add a fraud alert. Another option is to request a credit freeze, which you'll have to lift if you want to apply for credit; you must place credit freezes with each bureau separately. You can check your credit reports for free with all three bureaus at AnnualCreditReport.com.\n3.  Report it to the Federal Trade Commission. Visit IdentityTheft.gov or call 877-438-4338 to report the theft (even if you don't file a police report). Once you provide details of the identity theft, you'll receive an identity theft report, a recovery plan and assistance with the recovery steps.\n4.  File a police report. If you decide to file a police report or a creditor requires you to do so as part of their investigation, bring the following items with you to your local police office:\n*   A copy of your FTC report\n*   A valid government-issued ID with a photo\n*   Proof of address (a utility bill, credit card statement or similar)\n*   Any evidence of the ID theft\n6.  Change your passwords. Update any logins or PINs on any impacted accounts. Creating strong passwords is one way to help avoid identity theft in the future.\n7.  Have fraudulent charges removed from your accounts. Contact your creditors and request to have charges removed.\n8.  Dispute any inaccurate information on your credit reports. If you believe fraudulent information remains on your reports after contacting creditors, dispute that information with the credit bureaus. If the credit bureau can confirm your claim, the information will be removed from your report.\nYou can also visit Experian's Identity Theft Victim Assistance page for more help. END