Signs your identity may be in use
- Bills, letters, or collection calls for accounts you never opened.
- Charges on your statements you do not recognize.
- A Medicare Summary Notice listing care you never received.
- A letter from the IRS about a tax return you did not file.
- Being turned down for credit you expected to get.
Do these first
- Call the fraud department of any company where an account was opened or misused. Ask them to close or freeze the account.
- Freeze your credit at Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. It is free and stops new accounts in your name.
- Change passwords for your email and bank accounts, starting with email.
- Go to identitytheft.gov and report what happened.
What identitytheft.gov does for you
identitytheft.gov is the free federal website for identity theft victims, run by the Federal Trade Commission. You answer questions about what happened, and it creates a personal recovery plan with steps in the right order. It also gives you an official Identity Theft Report and letters already filled in, which you can send to credit bureaus, businesses, and debt collectors to fix your records.
If you would rather talk to a person, call the FTC at 1-877-382-4357.
Check your credit reports
Get your free credit reports at annualcreditreport.com, the official site. You can check all three bureaus as often as once a week. Look for accounts, addresses, and names you do not recognize, and dispute them with the bureau that shows them.
Keep a simple record
Keep a notebook or folder. For every call, write the date, the company, the name of the person you spoke to, and what they promised. Keep copies of every letter you send. This makes each later call much shorter.
Stuck on a step?
Text Uncle at +1 208 214 0093 and tell him what you see on your screen. He walks you through it in plain words, one step at a time.
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Written by the Textuncle team. Last updated October 3, 2026.
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