Credit monitoring services watch your credit file for changes and suspicious activity. They send you an alert if there are hard-credit inquiries about you and when new lines of credit are opened. If something doesn’t look right, you can report the activity to the company holding the account and the major credit bureaus.
Place fraud alerts on your credit report. This tells credit lenders that you may have been a victim of identity theft so they must verify with you before making changes to your credit.
Freezing your credit so that no one, including you, can open a line of credit. Doing this will require you to unfreeze your credit file before applying for a new credit line.
Identity theft protection services provide many helpful tools and resources. They offer real-time credit monitoring, customized account alerts and a 24/7 call center.
Visit identitytheft.gov for more resources around identity theft and to file a report if you have become a victim.