I recently had a break in at my home, and my social security card was stolen. Though it was locked up with my credit cards, passport, and birth certificate, the only important document that was taken was the social security card. Nonetheless, I cancelled all the credit cards to be reissued. I also contacted the FTC and made an identity theft report, and put a fraud alert on my credit reports.
What I want to know (if anyone knows) is there anything else I can do to help stop someone from using my number to open fake accounts or identities? The Social Security Administration doesn't really have to many safe guards to help "US". I was told by a friend to make sure that I pay attention to my mail, because the first sign that someone has stolen your identity is when they put a change of address in your name to have stolen merchandise come there. The US Post Office doesn't have safeguards in place to help with this either (I contacted them to let them know if I could put some sort of alert in there system "NOT" to allow address changes because of the possible threat of my stolen identity, they don't do it).
It would seem that with so much of this crime going on, that the government agencies would be helping citizens as much as they can "BEFORE" it becomes a problem. They all pretty much tell me that there is nothing I can do but hope nothing happens. Does anyone know anything else I can do to protect myself?
