Need Help ASAP please! Fraud

[Anonymous]

My daughter just called me and said she just received a whole bunch of credit cards (looks to be mostly Synchrony cards) in her name with balances that she did NOT open.  I need to know what all we should do and which to do first.  I want to get her to call all three bureaus and FREEZE her reports, but I'm assuming we need a FRAUD alert put in place.???? Never encountered this so if someone can PLEASE help we would appreciate it.

Thank you all.

[RobertEG]

There are two general types of fraud alerts.

An initial fraud alert lasts for only 90 days, and requires only notice from the consumer of potential or suspected fraud or identity theft.

An exttended fraud alers lasts for several years, but must be accompanied by a copy of a police report that documents some actual assertion of fraud/identity theft.

Since you have an actual incident, I would recommend filing a police report and obtaining an extended fraud alert.

The police report can also be used should any of the accounts appear on her credit report, as they can serve as basis for having the information immediately blocked from her credit report.

I would suggest a first step of filing a police report, and sending it to the CRAs along with proof of her identity, and getting an extended fraud alert placed on her credit file.

[youdontkillmoney]

Also sign up for notifications with a credit proection service such as Lifelock; this service will notify you when someone -- you or someone else--opens an account in your name. Case in point, I opened a cell phone service and a credit check was performed, while standing there I got a tect and email that an accoutn was opened in my name. It was me!

Of course if it was someone else I can also file a dispute with Lifelock and they will investigate on my behalf.

[Anonymous]

Thank you. We filed Fraud Alerts and Freezes on EX, EQ and TU.  Called Victoria's Secret and Nordstrom directly and they are performing an investigation and removing the HP's.  We're going to the police dept in the morning.  Found more accounts when we went into each of the bureaus.  It's so overwhelming!