HELP! Preventing ID Theft--Someone Went Through Our Trash!

[5oClockSomewhere]

Hi all-

We've been carefully rebuilding credit for the past year and DH and I are literally days away from closing on our first home.  We've been packing and going through things while we've been getting ready to move out.  Trash day was this morning, and last night we took out a hefty load of trash in 2 cans.  Our (night owl) neighbor left us a note this morning that someone went through our trash at 3am and took a bag of "paper stuff."

I'm mostly sure that I'm careful about what we throw away (and what we shred), but I'm just really nervous nonetheless.  Is there any sort of flag I can put on our credit reports since we know our information might have been compromised?  If we do this, would it look bad for the new mortgage we're getting ready to get?  I really appreciate any help you can give.

My hope is that in addition to a bag of our trash he got ahold of a huge bag of kitty poo from the litter box.  :-)

[llecs]

Same happened to us too, but we think we know who did it:

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/General-Credit-Topics/OK-so-I-take-out-the-trash-this-morning/td-p/1...

IMO, assume the worst and at a minimum, order a daily CMS that monitors all 3. That way if something ever did appear (and likely won't), then you'll be prepared and can take action within a few short days of ID theft occuring. If you are going to apply for a mortgage (as DW and I are soon), then I also recommend opting out with each CRA. That'll prevent your info from being sold to CAs and the like, but will also cut down on credit junk mail (e.g. preappovals) that are a treasure trove for ID thieves. There are other things you can do too, like put a fraud alert on each report, but IMO, it is way too early for that. I wouldn't do that unless something bad did appear.

[5oClockSomewhere]

Thanks for the info!

Sounds like I'm on the same page as you.  We're actually supposed to close on our house this week, which is why I had a little panic.  Since we've been doing credit repair I have a daily monitoring service so I'd know pretty fast if something new popped up.  I'll be watching it like a hawk.  Thanks!

[RobertEG]

This is the exact reason for enactment of FCRA 605A. 

It allows you to post a a notice of potential identity fraud alert to your CR, based on suspicion of potential identity theft, without having to actually initiate a block of any reportting, under the more severe provisions of FCRA 605B. It is not a statement of credit theft, just a warning of caution.

It just alerts creditors to be suspicious of your account usage. Maybe it will cause them to check on charges made, and contact you to see if you really authorized them.