identity theft

well, tomorrow is the last MBA 8125 class. The summer semester is finally coming to an end. In my opinion, this class has been more work than any other class I have taken.

Our group presentation (last night) was on the topic of identity theft. A last-minute addition that I added to my part of the presentation (on prevention) was the idea of contacting a credit reporting agency to get a credit report. If you live in Georgia, you can get two free credit reports a year. I don't think I have had my credit checked since I bought my house about five years ago, so I figured I would take advantage of the service. Trying to practice what I preach...

I wanted to make sure I went to a legitimate site so I went to ftc.gov and typed in free credit report in their search engine and that took me to this site: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt156.shtm and that site told me to go to www.annualcreditreport.com. I have heard the ads (quite creative) on TV for freecreditreport.com, so I went there, but, as I expected, you have to sign up for some service with a monthly charge. So, I went to the site mentioned by the FTC and signed up. It didn't end up being free, as there was an offer to get my score for $7.99 and I figured as long as I was doing this, it was worth the $8 to get my score to have an idea where I stand. Hopefully after I get my mba and get a new job (hopefully), I'll be able to buy a new house or at least a new car, so I need to make sure my credit is decent. My credit score did come back decent, not great, but I felt better knowing that I am not an identity theft victim and that my credit is not horrible.

At work today, I told a number of my coworkers about the site, and a few of them have gotten theirs checked out. No one has told me that they found out they were an identity theft victim yet, but I'm sure the people who checked are glad they did. After all, as we said in our presentation, 80% of identity theft victims don't know they are victims. One of my co-workers told me that he was rejected for a credit card, got his credit report and there was $70,000 of credit card debt that was on his account that didn't belong to him. It wasn't a case of identity theft, it was a case of erroneous record keeping, but things like that do happen as well and they will also prevent you from getting a mortgage, a car loan, a credit card etc..., so get your credit checked out!