Identity Theft Protection Tips After a Disaster

Posted by: Desiree B. | Jan 08,2008

If you’ve been through a natural disaster, you’ll have enough to worry about without being concerned about identity theft. Unfortunately, there are criminals who prey on people who have experienced a weather-related loss of their home or personal property. What you can do to protect yourself from identity theft after a disaster:

 

Ask for identification from anyone who says they are from an insurance company or a disaster-related organization like FEMA or the Red Cross. Contact the appropriate entities, like your insurance company, to confirm employee names.

 

Be wary of documents that are outside your home, or that are inside your damaged home and accessible to others. During a natural disaster, your personal paperwork can be swept away along with all of your other belongings. If you’ve lost papers, try to identify what’s been lost and decide what you need to do to protect yourself from identity theft.

 

If you give out your personal or financial information to someone, then later find out that they were not who they said they were, do what you can to protect your information. You can place fraud alerts on your credit reports by contacting the three credit bureaus. Depending upon the information that’s at risk for identity theft, you may need to contact your bank and credit card companies too.  

 

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