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How to Resolve Identity Theft

How do I prove to bill collectors that I am not responsible for fraudulent debts?

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Linda Sherry

Director, National Priorities, Consumer Action

http://www.consumer-action.org

editor@consumer-action.org

Linda Sherry, Consumer Action’s director of national priorities and one of the organization’s chief spokespersons, joined the San Francisco-based national consumer education and advocacy group in 1994 from a background as a weekly newspaper reporter.

Consumer Action (www.consumer-action.org), founded in 1971, has a national reputation for free multilingual consumer education on personal finance issues.

Sherry, who moved to Washington, DC, in August 2004 to establish an office for Consumer Action, is responsible for the organization’s national advocacy work and for the research and writing of Consumer Action’s free educational publications and web site content. Her recent projects for Consumer Action include publications on home buying, credit card terms and conditions, bankruptcy, ID theft, Internet privacy, cell phones and investing vs. savings. Sherry is chief surveyor and coordinator of Consumer Action’s popular pricing surveys of rates for credit cards and telephone services. She is the editor of Consumer Action’s newsletter, Consumer Action News.

Sherry has received awards for Consumer Action publications from the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators (Excellence in Consumer Education, 1996, 2000 and 2003) and U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs (1995 National Consumer Week). Sherry serves as a member of the National Consumers League Fraud Alliance steering committee.

Before joining Consumer Action, Sherry was managing editor of AsianWeek in San Francisco from 1991-1994. Previously she was a reporter at The Almanac newspapers in Menlo Park, CA; The New York Times Long Island Section and The East Hampton Star in East Hampton, NY. She was the founding editor of the Sag Harbor Herald, a weekly newspaper in Long Island, NY.

How do I prove to bill collectors that I am not responsible for fraudulent debts?

In this video, Linda Sherry details the best ways to prevent identity theft and what you can do if you think your identity has been stolen.

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Theft

Identity

Fraud

Internet

Abuse

Stolen

Scam

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Host: How do I prove to bill collectors that I am not responsible for fraudulent debts?

Linda Sherry: One of the main ways that people find out about identity theft or that they have become victims of identity theft is when a bill collector comes calling and a bill collector may call and say, they are collecting on some debt you never heard of. Well, that can be tough to prove that it's not you, but since you are a victim of identity theft, the law is on your side. What you have to do is collect all the information you can from the bill collector, both about the bill collector itself and also about the original debt that they are trying to collect on. Get as much information about that; contact the original company and tell the bill collector on that initial contact that you are victim; you have been victim of identity and so this is very likely a situation with ID theft.

You can also ask the bill collector to stop harassing you and you could do that by writing a letter, sending a Registered Receipt email.