If you have been a victim of identity theft, you can put a fraud alert on your credit bureau accounts.
The purpose of the fraud alert is to help reduce fraud. When you request that a fraud alert be put on
your accounts, they are flagged with a notice that tells vendors that an alert has been placed on the
account and that they should contact you and verify that you are you and that you indeed do want the
account that is being set up for you. Fraud alerts expire in 90 days. You can set up new ones every
90 days if you would like.
The question is, do they work? Do they help reduce fraud? I've used fraud alerts for a long time now
and I can tell you, at this point, I don't know if they help. I think they do, but I don't have any
evidence that they do or do not work. My gut is that I would have had a lot more to clean up if I
had not been using fraud alters when I got hacked. My guess is that a lot more accounts would have
been opened in my name.
My opinion is that fraud alerts are worth doing. They are free and they help. They are not a total
solution but they are helpful. The only hassle is that you have to renew them every 90 days. That
means keeping track of when you began your last alert and when it ends. Then, when the 90 days are up
you can sign up again and get the next 90 days going. Kind of a hassle but a lot less painful than
having to clean up an identity theft mess.
There are services out there that will automatically re-up your 90 day fraud alert, every 90 days.
That way you don't have to think about it. You can find out more about the service that I use to do
this at the bottom of the page.
Article Source: http://goarticles.com/article/Identity-Theft-Protection-Reviews-Is-it-worth-putting-FRAUD-ALERTS-on-your-credit-bureau-accounts/1471849/
