Victim of scam/identity theft?

0:00- [Instructor] So, let's talk a bit about how to protect yourself against identity theft, which is something you definitely don't want to happen because that's essentially a scenario where some bad actors pretend to be you, start opening credit cards in your name, start acting as you in other ways, and so they can steal money from you, they can commit fraud in your name, and they can get you in a lot of financial and even legal trouble.

0:23So, the first thing is, what can you proactively do? And we touched on this in other videos, but some examples is just being very careful with info. So, protecting info, and the most sensitive info, this isn't a comprehensive list, but things like Social Security numbers, things like date of birth, things like passwords, of course, and of course, having strong passwords, very, very important, but also other personal information.

0:50For example, sometimes there's security questions like your mother's maiden name or the first car that you drove, and if people know those security questions or the answers to them, they might be able to act as you on certain websites, so definitely be careful with this type of information.

1:05Sometimes you do have to share it with folks, but make sure that they are legitimate and make sure that they are protecting that information. When you're talking about online protection and also things like sensitive documents, bills, et cetera, just don't throw them away willy-nilly.

1:19Try to shred them, et cetera, so that someone can't just dig in your trash and get some of this information. Now, if you're online, probably the best safeguard you can have above and beyond having strong passwords is having what's known as two-factor authentication.

1:39Authentication is just a fancy way of proving you are who you say you are. Two-factor means it's not just a password. They might send you, say, a code over text or on email to make sure that you are who you are saying you are. And every now and then I get a text message, "Someone in some country is trying to access you, here's the passcode."

2:01I'm like, wow, somehow they got into an account of mine. Good thing I had two-factor authentication because they're not gonna be able to get in because they don't have my phone, and they're not going to get that secret code for the password. But let's assume the worst-case scenario.

2:14Somehow someone is able to fake your identity. What do you do in that circumstance, or what is there to protect you? Well, luckily there are some federal laws already on the books to protect you. We have things like, lemme make sure you can see that, we have things like the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act from 1998, which criminalizes identity theft, and allows the Federal Trade Commission, and let me write this down, because they are an important party here, so it allows the Federal Trade Commission to assist victims, and we'll talk in a second about how they actually go about assisting it.

2:52So, don't even think about doing identity theft for someone else, and if we can catch folks, it is criminalized. Now, there's also the Fair Credit Reporting Act of, and this was passed in 1970, it gives you the right to access your credit reports. Now, why is that important?

3:08Well, if you look at your credit reports, you'll see if there's something shady going on. For example, if your credit all of a sudden falls, or if you see, "Wait, there's a credit card open in my name, I never opened that credit card." Then you can take action, for example, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act allows you to do things like place fraud alerts and dispute fraudulent entries.

3:26Call that credit reporting agency and say, "Hey, that wasn't me." Now, if you start seeing that type of things, if you start seeing, "Hey, there's someone opening up a credit card in my name or has stolen my identity in some way", there's several things that you need to do.

3:40The first step is to report the issue to the Federal Trade Commission. This generates a report and it gives you an action plan as well. Now, once you do that, there's several things that will happen. You could have a fraud alert placed. This would be anyone who might wanna do a credit check, et cetera, they'll say there's a fraud alert so they'll double-check whoever's applying for that credit is actually you, and then you could also have something called a credit freeze, where for the time being until you get everything sorted out, the credit agencies aren't going to give a credit report to new inquiries, so it's going to be very hard for people to open up, say, new bank accounts, or take a loan in your name.

4:29Now, above and beyond that, it is usually a good idea to file a police report, and this also protects you, because if people are spending money in your name so that you aren't going to be on the hook, you can say, "Look, I already talked to the police, there is some identity theft going on here."

4:45And at the state level, many states also issue things like identity theft passports. Because you could imagine even though you have things like fraud alerts and credit freezes to make it hard for the bad actors to open up things in your name, you still need to do things in your name, and this identity theft passport is a way that you can prove that you are definitely who you say you are, so even though frictions are put in place for other folks, you can still act.

5:19So, hopefully you never fall into this situation. Try to be proactive about it, but if you do, there are things you can do. And last but not least, and this goes all the way back to where we started, if you find yourself in this situation, above and beyond what I just said, you should also call all of your bank accounts, get new credit cards issued with new numbers, and you should start changing your passwords, have stronger passwords, and once again, make sure you have two-factor authentication.