How Identity Thieves May Target Soldiers
Soldiers have become prime targets for identity thieves. Relocation and deployments as well as other aspects of military life are attractive to many criminals as they search for personal information to steal. In 2006, 100 million personal records were lost or stolen, one third of which were military personnel both active and retired. Why is that?
A soldier's personal information would seem to be more readily available than other citizens. Many in the military are very young and are thus targeted by credit card issuers, frequently leading to more and more correspondence containing personal information. Each member of the military has a paper trail a mile long and a great deal of that travels through the mail from post to post. From 1969 to 2008 all government issued I.D. cards, duffel bags, clothing, military records, and even dog tags had the full social security number of the soldier on them.
Fortunately in April of 2008 the Department of Defense agreed to change that policy to include only the last four digits of the social security number. It is hoped that this change will be complete by the end of 2010. It is no surprise then that in August of 2005 over 150 U.S. soldiers stationed in England had their identity stolen totaling over $70,000.00 in loss. That is a snapshot of s single month and it is clear from many other reports this is not an isolated incident.
Active Duty Alert - Fraud Protection For U.S. Soldiers
Soldiers have enough to worry about without concern that their identities will be stolen while they are deployed. Fortunately now there is something they can do about it. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) has added a new type of fraud protection called an Active Duty Alert. This alert will help prevent identity thieves from getting credit cards and loans in the name of the soldier. The alert is tied directly to the soldier's credit report.
A credit report contains a host of personal information that no one would want floating around in the public domain. It contains who you are, where you live, when and how you pay your bills, and any criminal record you may have. This information is available to creditors, insurers and employers. Identity thieves capture this information and use it to get credit, take out loans, buy high end items, and commit many other types of fraud.
An active duty alert can be placed on the credit report of any member of the military that is away from their duty station. When a creditor or other business receives a request for credit and finds an active duty alert on the credit report they must confirm the identity of the consumer before credit is issued. This means the business will attempt to contact the military consumer directly more than likely via phone. This may be difficult if the soldier is deployed. In this case the soldier can assign a personal representative that can speak for him or her. This person is more often than not a spouse or other member of the immediate family but can be anyone designated by the soldier. The alert is active for one year and can be renewed or removed at any time by the soldier or the designated representative.
How To Place An Active Duty Alert
An active duty alert can be placed or removed by contacting one of the national consumer reporting agencies. These are:
- TransUnion: 800-680-7289
- Equifax: 800-525-6285
- Experian: 888-680-7289
Once one of the reporting agencies has an active duty alert placed they are required to contact the other two agencies so they can update their records as well. This alert will also remove the soldier's information from marketing lists that offer “pre-approved offers” cutting down on the amount of junk mail with personal information considerably. Remember each one of those offers can be an invitation for identity theft. Fortunately an active duty alert makes this type of credit fraud much more difficult and as such less attractive for the identity thieves.
You can find additional tips on identity theft protection in our Financial Articles section, which covers many other finance-related issues. Our site is a credit card directory where consumers, students and soldiers can Apply For Credit Cards from several banks.