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Tuesday April 8, 2014
Consumer Fraud
posted by Jonathan Hodge
Tags: In the news
Our office has been receiving a spade of calls from consumers worried that their personal information has somehow been compromised due to scam artists contacting them and threatening them with felony actions if they do not pay alleged debts that the scam artists claim exist. Do not be fooled, some of these scam artists will have your personal information and will use it to deceive you by exploiting any and all information that you will give to them when you speak to them. Understand that if a debt collector contacts you, they are required by law to provide that debt collection information in writing to you. It is a sure sign that it is a scam if the caller refuses to provide that written information to you.
What to do if you get this phone call? Often these scam artists cannot be found or traced. Nevertheless, their call demonstrates that somewhere your information has been compromised. If these types of calls happen to you, immediately report to either Equifax, Experian or TransUnion that your personal identity information has been compromised and file a 90-day fraud alert. You can also request from any one of these three credit reporting agencies to contact the other two credit reporting agencies, so that you must only contact one of them. You can Equifax at 1-800-685-1111, Experian at 1-888-397-3742, and TransUnion at 1-800-888-4213. You can also go the FTC website, or report directly at www.consumer.ftc.gov/article/0275-place-fraud-alert#Why to report these accounts immediately.
If you have any further questions or concerns, please contact us to set up a consultation where we can assist further.
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