How can one find out if his/her identity has been stolen?

Under most circumstances a person knows about identity theft only after some damage has been done to his account or name.

1. You will come to know about this when a recovery agency contacts you for an overdue bill which you never had.

2. The same way while applying for a loan you will find out that you are not being given loan due to a bad credit history.

3. In the same way you might get a correspondence regarding an apartment you never rented.
Personal information that needs to be monitored regularly are:

You can prevent a lot of damage from occurring by just keeping a track of your personal details and by early detection of identity theft. The information that needs to be monitored regularly are:

1. Financial Statement: You should always monitor and keep a track of all your bills and statement for transactions that you might have not made.

2. Credit Report: A credit report has all the details regarding the account held by you and the ways of payments that you use to pay bills etc. It is a must by law to provide you with your credit report free of charge at your request once in 12 moths. The consumer agencies thereby have to provide you with this report at least once in 12 months. If the thieves are opening any account in your name or making payment on your name this report will help you detect it easily.

The reports once received by you should be checked carefully by you. You should mark all the transactions that you never made or the account you never opened or the loans that you never took. Make sure that all your personal information including SSN number, name, address, and contact number employers details etc are correct in these reports. If you see any information that is not true get it changed immediately. After these make sure you check your reports regularly and on regular intervals. This should be followed by you especially in the first year after you have detected identity theft.