• Identity Crime: An Overview
• Prevention
• Victim Assistance
  • Rights of Victims
  • Components of Victim Assistance
  • Sample Programs and Victim Assistance Resources
  • Downloadable Resources
• Investigation
• Resource Sharing

Components of Victim Assistance.

Each department should consider the following activities to help an identity crime victim:

• Provide the victim with the information he/she needs to recover and stop further instances of identity theft. Those documents could include:
  • The FTC’s guidebook When Bad Things Happen to Your Good Name. Download or print the document from the FTC website.
  • The U.S. Postal Inspection Service pamphlet Identity Theft available on the U.S. Postal Inspection Service website.
• Instruct the victim to contact the following agencies and organizations:
  • The FTC to file a report in order to get access to their personal information. This report is not intended to replace the law enforcement report or investigation.
  • One of the three credit companies (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) to place a fraud alert on his/her credit reports. They need to contact only one of the three credit reporting companies; that company is required to contact the other two, and all three will place alerts on their versions of the victim’s reports.
  • Financial institutions, such as banks, credit card companies, and other financial institutions to check for unusual activity on his/her accounts.
  • Utility companies (power, water, phone, cable television, and so on), to inform them that the person has been a victim of identity theft, and to check for unusual activity to his/her accounts.
  • The Social Security Administration Inspector General Fraud Hotline, if the victim believes his/her Social Security Number may have been compromised (800-269-0271).