Identity Theft Alert: 10 Rules You Must Follow to Protect Yourself from America’s #1 Crime

Credit Reports

Santa Claus might know whether you have been bad or good, at least in the 1934 song “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” by J. Fred Coots and Henry Gillespie, but I’ll bet the jolly old elf does not have as much information about you as the three major credit-reporting agencies have in their files. Although your position on the naughty-or-nice scale might affect what you receive from Santa, your credit report and credit score can affect you much more significantly—from getting a job to getting a mortgage to whether an insurance company will do business with you. Often, your first indication that you have been victimized by identity theft is on your credit report.

When an identity thief gets access to your credit report by posing as ...