There is no definitive answer for the important question, how to stop identity theft. There are, however, ways to slow identity theft down and prevent identity theft from getting out of hand. Knowing these techniques are vital if you want to put an end to identity theft before it costs you an outlandish amount of time and money to get your life back to normal.

It is extremely important to place a fraud alert on your credit reports immediately after finding out you have been a victim of identity theft. Placing a fraud alert is how to stop identity theft from getting any worse. The fraud alert lets the credit bureaus and any credit agency know that some type of credit fraud has occurred. It essentially makes it impossible for new credit accounts to be opened without contacting the victim. It is the first step to identity theft recovery and is absolutely mandatory.

Contacting one of the credit agencies and placing a fraud alert is the first place you should be reporting identity theft. Once the alert is in place, contacting the local police is the next step. A police report is mandatory to prove the fraud has occurred and to get your financial losses back. The FTC is the federal government agency that handles identity theft and should be the next agency to report the fraud to. Follow these steps to put together an adequate file for a potential court case against the thief.

This is a fairly complex and timely process to follow. One of the benefits of identity theft monitoring services is that they generally do all the work for you! Most services also have allowances for financial losses and even a stipend for a lawyer if one is needed in the recovery process. These monitoring services are how to stop identity theft from costing you lots of time and energy for up to two years after the initial theft took place. Typically, these services are less than $20 per month and, in my opinion, are well worth it. In the case that you become a victim, you have a service that will guide you through the recovery process and will pay for any costs that arise.

Unfortunately, for all law-abiding citizens out there, there is no definitive solution to identity theft, but rather these steps to make it as painless as possible. The more knowledge a person has on this subject, the better he or she will know how to stop identity theft in a timely fashion with the least amount of damage.