August 22, 2022
Question: I've read several of your articles on Credit Monitoring and I've pulled my report to look through it. Is there anything that I should look at that is a "red flag”?
Answer: EXCELLENT question! There is a lot of data on the credit report including both open and closed accounts. A couple of items that we generally focus on include:
Are there any open or closed accounts that you don’t recognize?
Are there any “late” payments that you don’t agree with?
Are there any addresses that do not belong to you? This one is a biggy in our eyes for two reasons:
Because it can be a sign that someone with a name similar to yours (if you are a Jones, Smith, or any other “common” name) somehow accidentally (or on purpose) is connected to your credit report and you should contact the credit reporting agency to fix this.
Because it could indicate that someone is staging a possible identity strike. Meaning they are first creating an address that they will later apply for credit using your name and credit information. You wouldn’t even know because they would have any information shipped to a different mailing address. If you see this, then, in our opinion, you need to immediately freeze your credit report, notify the post office, and report it to the credit agencies.
We would also encourage you to possibly report it to the police. That creates a case, should you ever need it.
This has become such an issue that there is now a special section on the Federal Trade Commission website for you to report any type of fraud: ReportFraud.ftc.gov
Like your physical health, your financial health is all about being proactive and practicing preventive care. We recommend that everyone freeze their credit reports since it is now free to do so. Here are some links that you can use to freeze your credit reports - make sure you keep the login information in a secure location should you ever need to unfreeze your report.
Other preventive measures would include filing for an IP PIN with the IRS, in the past this was reserved only for Identity Theft Victims. It is now available to all of us to opt into: Get An Identity Protection PIN | Internal Revenue Service (irs.gov)
Do your friends ask you financial questions?
Pass those questions on to us at AskRPG@rootedpg.com and we will feature them in our future newsletters.