How To Report Unauthorized Transactions or Incidents of Theft or Fraud
If you detect any unauthorized transactions in a financial account, promptly notify your payment card company or financial institution. If you detect any incident of identity theft or fraud, promptly report the incident to law enforcement, the FTC and your state’s Attorney General. If you believe your identity has been stolen, the FTC recommends that you take these steps:
- Place an initial fraud alert.
- Order your credit reports.
- Create an FTC Identity Theft Affidavit by submitting a report about the theft at ftc.gov/complaint or by calling the FTC
- File a police report about the identity theft and get a copy of the police report or the report number.
- Bring your FTC Identity Theft Affidavit with you when you file the police report.
Your Identity Theft Report is your FTC Identity Theft Affidavit, plus your police report. You may be able to use your Identity Theft Report to remove fraudulent information from your credit report, prevent companies from refurnishing fraudulent information to a consumer reporting agency, stop a company from collecting a debt that resulted from identity theft, place an extended seven-year fraud alert with consumer reporting agencies, and obtain information from companies about accounts the identity thief opened or misused.
You can contact the FTC to learn more about how to protect yourself from becoming a victim of identity theft and how to repair identity theft:
Federal Trade Commission
Consumer Response Center
600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington DC 20580
1-877-IDTHEFT (438-4338)