As Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week continues, brought to us by the FTC, today’s focus was on protecting active duty military. Here are the highlights from Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week – Day Three.
Our active duty military personnel are at a disadvantage when it comes to monitoring themselves for identity theft. While overseas, most military have limited access to their accounts and this can leave them more prone to fraudulent activity. It is difficult for them to receive e-mails or notifications regarding their credit or financial accounts.
For those deployed in the active military, you have the option to set up Active Duty Credit alerts, for free, with the three main credit reporting bureaus. Please contact one of the following:
State that you are an active duty member of the military and ask for an Active Duty Credit Alert to be placed on your file. You will need to provide specific forms of identification.
Placing a credit alert on your account will require lenders to go through additional steps in order to verify that you are actually requesting credit. Generally, they will try and contact you (or a representative – more on that in a bit) via a telephone number you provide.
When setting up your credit alert, you have the ability to appoint a personal representative. This will give the assigned person the legal authority to act on your behalf on credit issues. This makes it much easier if you should want to apply for credit while deployed.
Your Active Duty Credit Alert will stay on your file for one year. This is an extra layer of protection which will give you peace of mind while you focus on your duties.
The FTC has done an outstanding job bringing to light a vast amount of information regarding tax ID theft this week. We hope that this information from Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week – Day Three has been helpful. We support our troops and thank them for their service!
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