Who do you call when you discover a credit card was opened in your name and you never opened one?

Answer 1

You have to call all three major credit bureaus. I had to do that as well. I also had to call the FBI and I had to file a police report at he police station in my town. Answer #2 Call the credit card company first. Call the credit card company. Also, call the three credit bureaus (TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian) and put a credit freeze on your credit record. Also, order a (free) copy of your credit report (at annualcreditreport.com) to check for other unauthorized accounts. And file a police report.

Call the credit card company first.<br><br><h2>Another answer</h2><br>Immediately call the credit card company's security department and open a complaint for identity theft. They have the burden of proving you opened the account, and not some impersonator, but you will have to cooperate to get this done quickly. You also have to overcome their normal reluctance to admit their embarrassing mistake, and start to believe that you are not actually a thief who owes them thousands of dollars in unpaid credit bills.<br><br>Send them a written notice that you are disputing any and all charges made on this card, as you are a victim of fraud and did not request or use this card. That written notice will prevent them from sending the unpaid bills to a collection agency. A collection agency would be liable for damages and your attorney's fees if they tried to collect on this.<br><br>You should also call the credit reporting agencies and tell them you have filed a credit fraud report and ask them to note this in your credit file, hopefully prior to any "unpaid 90 days" notations caused by the thieves. <br><br>You may also file a complaint with your local police, district attorney, or consumer protection agency of the attorney general's office. They may have other suggestions, depending upon your situation.<br><br>The impersonator may have used your name, ssn, and mother's maiden name, along with your address, employer, or telephone number, to give the appearance of validity. <br><br>Ask the credit card company to send you a copy of the application as submitted and any information attached for validity (driver's license, employer's W2, etc). You can then immediately point out all of their errors and get their investigators on the right track. <br><br>I have seen cases where the thief sent a doctored copy of a driver's license from a different state, with a different picture (different race), with the address and W2 of a non-existent company, and the phone number of an answering service. Credit card issued and $5,000 of charges racked up before someone phoned the actual person (from credit file contact information) to find out why she hadn't paid.<br><br>In any case, you are not liable for one penny of the charges that someone may have put on a card in your name. It is the fault of the credit card company for not making sure it was actually you. Because they cannot prove it was you, and you can prove it was NOT you, they would lose if they try to collect anything from you. In fact, you could sue the person for all of your attorney's fees and mental exhaustion, if they ever find the person who did this to you.<br><br>If the credit people are being stinkers, ask them what proof they have that you personally signed anything, or made any of the alleged purchases. Have them send you copies of every charge made and refute them one-by-one, if necessary.<br>