How to Access Your Credit Report Online For FREE and Protect Yourself From Identity Thieves!
These days you'd have to be an ostrich with your head in the sand to not hear at least 30 ads a month offering you a "free" credit report. The problem with these services being advertised, is they all ask for a credit card in order to get your report. Sure, your credit report is free, as long as you agree to sign up for a 30 day trial to their Credit Monitoring Service (or whatever they choose to call it). The sad reality is these schemes rely on the fact you will likely forget to cancel the "free trial" to their service which you started only to get your "free" report in the first place. Then, you end up getting billed and canceling anyway. What we're going to show you is something we've been doing for years and only shared with friends until now... Please note: The only way this will quit working is if the Credit Bureaus change the rules (which we believe they will so you better act on this today). Here are three simple steps on how this works:
STEP ONE: The best way to protect yourself from Identity Theft is to put a "Fraud Alert" on your credit reports. This fraud alert makes it impossible for anyone to get any "hard inquiry" credit in your name WITHOUT the creditor having to physically CALL YOU at the phone number you list on your credit report. No phone call from the creditor = no credit granted. The nice little "side effect" of establishing a Fraud Alert on your credit report is that you automatically get a free copy of your credit report when you do it! But wait... it gets even better! You can go to Experian's website and initiate the Fraud Alert online and you'll get access to your report, INSTANTLY!
STEP TWO: Now that you've completed step one and gained instant online access to your credit report you're now ready for step two. Since your Fraud Alert only lasts 90 days, you need to set up a reminder to "re-initiate" the Fraud Alert every 90 days. We suggest you set up this reminder on your cell phone so you don't forget (by the way, if you're paying over $100 a year for identity theft protection, you may opt to cancel it and save your money... it's a false sense of security).
STEP THREE: This last step, in our opinion, gives you better identity theft protection than any paid service. Now, some identity thieves are incredibly smart, rather than apply for credit with your information they will do something we call "Credit Hijacking" and it works like this... An identity thief will take your information and posing as you call one (or all) of your credit cards and change your billing address. This way they can order products online and have them shipped to the "new fraudulent address" and bypass online merchants who use a security feature known as Address Verification System (or A.V.S. for short). When merchants use AVS a charge on your credit card can only be processed if the items purchased are shipped to your credit card billing address. In order to protect yourself from thieves that do this you need to create a separate password with each of your credit card accounts. This password creates an extra tier of security beyond just the "last four digits of your SSN" or "your mother's maiden name" as this information is way too public and easy for criminals to access.
Now, let's go over one last critical tip for protecting yourself against 21st century Identity Thieves...
Why You Should NEVER Use Your Home Address On Your Automobile Registration! Some criminals are getting really creative; like the ones that go to a parking garage at a hospital and break into a Doctors car. Not to steal his car. Not to steal his stereo. No...They're much smarter than that... Instead, they stole his auto registration. Why? Because it had his home address on it. Combine this with his garage door opener (off his sun visor) and the criminals were then off to his house. Once there they pulled their van into his garage, only to find the door into his house... UNLOCKED! They then proceeded to load their van full of his life possessions; from big screen TV's and entertainment systems to artwork and jewelry. In the end, the criminals made off with almost $100,000 worth of valuables.
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