Recovering from Identity Theft

When Thomas got his credit card statement, he wasn't worried. He had finally paid off his bill. So he know he didn't own any money. But when Thomas looked at his statement, he found thousands of dollars in charges he didn't recognize. 

Someone stole his identity, so Thomas got busy. He called his credit card company right away. Then he went to identitytheft.gov to find out what else he needed to do. First, Thomas answered questions about what happened to him. He gave information about the crime, along with his name and address. Based on his information, Thomas got a recovery plan to help him fix the problems caused by his identity theft. His plan told him to put a fraud alert on his credit report and to get a free copy of his credit report from annualcreditreport.com. 

And because Thomas has created a free account at identitytheft.gov, he got even more help. He got a personalized letter he could send to the credit card company asking them to fix the problems. And the site helped him keep track of his recovery steps. Thomas had more to do to stop the damage the identity thief had caused, but because he acted so fast in the beginning, it all turned out OK in the end.