Found some discrepancies in your credit card statement or your credit report and suspect you’ve been victimized by identity thieves, who should you call? You should know your identity theft hotline. You can also call your bank, your credit card company and the store where you have a credit line, this should be done in order to minimize your liability. It is easier to get out of the problem when you called and reported the possibility of identity theft.

Depending on your situation, you can report identity theft to the following agencies:

The Federal Trade Commission

If you are having a difficult time connecting to the institution involved in your case, you can call the FTC instead.

The Commission is mandated by the Identity Theft & Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998 to accept and process complaints filed by identity theft victims, they are also responsible in directing your complaints to the appropriate industry including the major credit and police agencies. Take note of the FTC identity theft hotline 1-877-IDTHEFT (or 1-877-438-4338). You can also go their website and fill up the complaint form.

The Social Security Administration

The SSA does not usually provide assistance to identity theft victims, but they do have a system in place that can help you solve your dilemma. You can call them at their hotline 800-269-0271, although this is not an identity theft hotline, but you can contact SSA at that number or you can use their website to file a complaint.

In case you are a victim of SSN theft you can change your number, if you fall under the criteria of SSA’s victims of fraud, you can learn more about this at their website. But even if you are given a new SSN and the theft is reported to the proper authorities, it is not a guarantee that your all your problems will be solved, as it does not guarantee a fresh credit rating, credit records from your two SSNs can be combined by different Bureaus, plus even if you are given a fresh start, having no record can also mean a hard time trying to gain credit.

The Three Major Credit Bureaus

These three major credit bureaus Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, are responsible for your credit rating as such you can get periodic credit reports from them and in cases of identity theft you can call their identity theft hotlines.

Remember to report any inconsistencies or discrepancies in your credit records at once to the proper agencies, always keep their identity theft hotline accessible to you. Reporting your concerns at the earliest possible time will help minimize the damage and make life easier for you in the long run.

Commercial identity theft can be defined by any of three things. It can involve the identity thief targeting all the employees in an organization or what is known as spear phishing. It can also mean the thief accessing the company’s credit account. The thief targeting a firm’s clients is the third kind of commercial identity theft.

Spear Phishing – Fish in a Barrel

This type of commercial identity theft hijacks the credit of people within an organization. This could involve the employees and/or executives of a company – as either the victims or the perpetrators.

This type of credit hijack uses a method known as spear phishing, by the use of an e-mail, allegedly spawned by a department within the company. The e-mail will often direct employees to a counterfeit website and ask them to personal information or will ask for an e-mail reply with the same info.

Usually, the thief (which can also be an employee of the company) simply copies the database containing all the account and Social Security information of everyone involved in the company and then these thieves can wreak havoc over the employees’ credit account information.

Commercial Credit – The Company’s Credit Account

Here, the identity thief gains access to the credit account, credit cards, and/or checking accounts of a targeted company.

This is done either by a computer hack that is able to gain access to the company’s computer database but more likely it is the work of someone currently or previously employed by the company whose access is readily available.

There is also the possibility that the identity thief hacks the company’s e-banking transactions, either by hacking thru the computers or by a simpler method like stealing checks or stealing and faking credit cards.

Commercial Identity Theft – Client Hijack

Aside from targeting the company’s credit accounts and spear phishing, an identity thief can also make use of the usual phishing scam or its partner pharming in order to victimize a company’s client base, usually by attacking a company’s computer network to harvest for personal client information.

The goal is to gain the client database of the company and gain access to clients’ credit accounts. In the end, the thief can clean out the client’s accounts before anyone else knows any better.

When an identity thief hacks a company’s database to hack their way into a company’s account, do spear phishing to get employee information, or access the clients’ database, you should learn to protect yourself from these thieves, gain useful information, and take steps to prevent hackers from accessing your account. Take. Simple steps you take can ensure that your identity will be safe from these hackers.