Help me protect my husband from identity theft

July 18, 2019 9:40 AM

My husband responded to one of those scam calls, giving away his name, zip code and last four digits of social, before he realized it was a scam. What are the steps he should be taking now to protect his identity?

Unfortunately, my husband gave away some information to a scam caller, which seems to have been the usual sort of thing - they claimed there were fraudulent activities, an arrest warrant out etc. The info is his name, zip and last four digits of social. What can he do now to protect his identity?

Should he freeze his credit? How exactly does one do that? Call his credit card companies? Anything else? What can that info be used to obtain? Help!

posted by peacheater to Human Relations (14 answers total)

you can, via their websites, place a fraud alert on your credit report which is less hassle than freezing but you can do that too right on the experian or equifax etc websites. You can contact your credit card company and bank and get new cards issued. These are quick and easy, I just did this a few weeks back after having an account hacked.

Always a good to reset your passwords if you haven't in a while.

The info people have here is typically not hard to find and thus not especially dangerous.
posted by French Fry at 9:50 AM on July 18, 2019

How to Freeze your Credit.
posted by Duffington at 10:31 AM on July 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

A freeze is permanent. A 90-day fraud alert is temporary. Your ID doesn't stop being stolen after 90 days, and people will keep applying for new accounts using the stolen data through the end of the first fraud alert (Ask Me How I Know!). Do a 90-day fraud alert now because it's fast and easy and it will propagate immediately to all three major reporting services. Then go do individual freezes at each service within the next week or so. If you are unable to complete the permanent freezes quickly, set a calendar reminder so you get it done before the 90-day alert expires.
posted by fedward at 10:55 AM on July 18, 2019 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Not to threadsit, but now the initial panic has worn off, I'm wondering if the nature of the given-out info is serious enough to warrant a credit freeze, or if a fraud alert will do. There does seem to be an annual fraud alert that can then be renewed, FWIW.
posted by peacheater at 11:17 AM on July 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: My husband has already instituted a credit alert.
posted by peacheater at 11:20 AM on July 18, 2019

We set up a credit freeze after the big release of data at Experian. It is rare (maybe once every 12 months or less) that we need to unfreeze an credit account in order to do something. I feel iike it protects us from the threats we don't know as well as the ones we do since I think the biggest risk is that information held by a third party gets hacked and we don't even know about it.
posted by metahawk at 1:21 PM on July 18, 2019 [2 favorites]

I'm of the opinion that a freeze should be the standard state of things and you should have to give explicit permission for a credit pull. Identities are too easily stolen these days. Mine was stolen before the Experian breach was discovered and I only found out as quickly as I did by chance. The very first account they opened with my stolen info was with a bank where I already had accounts. I got an email saying "welcome to your new [REDACTED] REWARDS VISA" and then missed a work team lunch because I was on the phone canceling the fraudulent account and making sure our login credentials hadn't been compromised.

So anyway: freezing is a good idea regardless of whether you believe your identity has already been stolen. If you need to open a new line of credit you can grant temporary access to a named entity or do a temporary thaw where your file will automatically freeze again on the date you specify. I recommend it. I think I'd have recommended it before my identity was stolen, if I'd known that it was an option, but I had to find out the hard way.
posted by fedward at 2:00 PM on July 18, 2019 [3 favorites]

Is there any reason not to freeze his credit? I recently froze mine, and it looks like unfreezing it is now free, and pretty easy. I got passwords or PINs from each of the 3 companies, and can use them to do the unfreeze online. I'm agreeing with fedward, above; freezing credit should be the default.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 2:47 PM on July 18, 2019

In addition to a credit alert/freeze (which ever one you choose) I would suggest:

1. Sign up for a credit monitoring service.
2. Make sure your bank, retirement, investment, and credit card accounts have 2 Factor Authentication. If they don't have that option they should make you give knowledge based answers every time you sign in from a new computer. An example question would be, "what's the name of your favorite movie?" An example knowledge based answer would be "Footloose".
3. Make sure you have text and e-mail notifications setup for suspicious activity.
4. The e-mail account that's connected to your financial accounts needs to have a unique password (not shared with another website) and 2 Factor Authentication. If a scammer is able to access your e-mail account, they can request the bank/credit card company reset your password by e-mailing a reset link.
5. Require verbal passwords everytime someone calls the bank/credit card company. Even if the scammer has all your important information, they wouldn't be able to access your account or make changes over the phone unless they have the verbal password. Make the verbal password different from your Mother's maiden name. The scammers that stole my identity a few years ago even know my Mother's maiden name.
posted by mundo at 2:47 PM on July 18, 2019

Freeze credit. Then print the pins to unfreeze and keep them with your important documents. (I printed mine to PDF and lost them when I lost my hard drive.)
posted by heigh-hothederryo at 10:01 PM on July 18, 2019

You’ll also be able to get a new pin if for some reason you can’t remember yours, it’s a bit of a hassle but not at all impossible.

Freeze his credit and yours, today.
posted by lydhre at 5:37 AM on July 19, 2019

I froze my credit after the Experian debacle. A few months later, I applied for a new card with Chase. Chase sent me a letter telling me: "hey, we see your credit is frozen, get a temporary PIN for a one-time pull from here, enter it on our website here, and we'll approve it."

There's really no reason not to have your credit frozen IMO. If a credit institution needs a pull, they can ask for a temporary PIN.
posted by teabag at 7:31 AM on July 19, 2019

I froze my credit after the Experian leak. Now that it's free to place and lift freezes, I see no reason to *not* have your credit frozen. The minimal hassle to deal with that is going to be so much less than the major hassle of cleaning up after identity theft.
posted by Aleyn at 10:43 PM on July 19, 2019

Also, credit reporting institutions will try to direct you to place "credit locks" and other such half-measures. They offer few guarantees. A credit freeze is backed by legislation, and credit reporting institutions are bound by law to honor the freeze and ensure you authorize any credit reports.
posted by Aleyn at 10:49 PM on July 19, 2019