How can reviewing my credit report help me protect myself from identity theft?
In our society, our credit report is our financial health. For example, you go to the doctor, you get a physical, they take your blood, they do your white counts, your red counts and they check your cholesterol to make sure you're healthy. If there's any issues with the elevations of your counts, they're going to inform you of that so you can take necessary measures to correct it. It's the same thing reviewing with your credit report. If you review your credit report on an annual basis and things don't look right you will be able to respond to that as you need to become financially healthy. If the credit scores are low because accounts that you are unaware of have been opened, you need to respond to that. If there are fraudulent accounts opened up under your name without your knowledge, you need to shut those down. We are judged in our society based on our credit reports. Your insurance rates are based on credit reports in certain circumstances. Whether or not you can get a job is based on how responsible you are, as far as your credit report is concerned. So, if your identity has been comprimised, in some situations you can be denied employment. Your financial health is all based on your credit report, you need to pay close attention and should go online to annualcreditreport.com to get a free credit report at least quarterly. One different credit report from each credit bureau every four months, making sure that all of the information on it is correct, and disputing information that isn't correct.
