How do I respond to possible identity theft, or to someone stealing my credit card or bank account number?
Immediate action is important. 1. If a criminal may have your credit card number, use the credit card issuing company’s 7/24 phone number to report the card “stolen” right now, day or night. Once that is done, return here to follow the other reporting steps. In most jurisdictions, by reporting a credit card or card number as stolen as soon as you realize it has been stolen, you limit your liability for charges made on it. 2. Minimize the time the criminal has to work, so that the damage to your credit and the effort to restore your credit is minimized. Follow the other reporting steps promptly, no later than the morning of the next business day. Different countries have different reporting steps, and these are given at the websites below. Generally, they involve: (a) Contacting all of your country’s central credit bureaus to place a “fraud alert” on your credit file. (b) Closing any account that you know has been tampered with. This includes confirming that the credit cards or card num
