You Don't Have to Pay for Identity Theft Debts or Have Them on Your Credit Report!

Has identity theft caused your credit report to show a debt that's not yours? Good news. The law says that you're not responsible for those debts, nor do you have to have those things on your credit report. The same thing can be true if someone's trying to collect the debt that you don't recognize or something appears on your credit report that is totally unfamiliar to you. The key is that you don't need to know who stole your identity. Frankly, you don't even need to know if your identity was stolen or not. You just know that somebody is trying to collect something that is absolutely not yours, that you have no connection to.

Like I said, the good news is the law says that you're not responsible for those things and you don't have to have them on your credit report. I'm Consumer Financial Protection Attorney Mike Cardoza. I practice Consumer Financial Protection Law, and I represent consumers that have this problem all the time.

That's the good news. Some of sticky news it that you've got to about documenting the situation and notifying the creditors and the credit bureau in a very specific and particular way. The reason for this is that you've got to track the laws that are applicable to you exactly. The reason for that, is because all of these creditors are making a whole bunch of loans to a whole bunch of people that they've never even seen before, often on the internet. Their worst nightmare is that everybody who says that they owe money suddenly claims that they're a victim of identity theft, then all of a sudden, where are they?

I tell you that to tell you, that when you do have an identity theft situation, or one that you suspect is identity theft, more likely than not, unless it's super completely obvious which does happen, that creditor or the credit reporting agency, they're going to fight like hell. It's nothing personal, they're just protecting their business interests. That's the reason that I feel it's important to have an attorney on your side from the get-go, so that you don't waste time and energy trying to do things that ultimately will have no legal effect.

If you have one of these cases, here's what we're going to do. We're going to gather and collect all your documents that tend to prove that this thing isn't yours. That maybe you were somewhere else when it happened. That it's a different spelling of your name. That it's in a city that you've never been to. It's something you've disputed before. Something with somebody else's name. You get the idea.

We put all that stuff together, and then we get it all together with the particular documents like a police report that's based on an affidavit that's got certain parts of it filled out and signed. We put that all together in a package for you to review. You send these notifications out to all the people that are claiming that you owe them money, or claiming that you have something derogatory on your credit report, and then wait for the response. Generally, what happens is nothing. That's not all bad because we're expecting it in at least half the situations. When that nothing happens, we file suit, we roll in, we prove hey, this person is not that person. We don't know what happened, nor do we have to prove what happened. What I can prove, is that this isn't that person's debt. You have no right to collect it. It shouldn't be reported on their credit report, and we want the debt gone, we want the credit reporting gone, and we want compensation for the damages. That's generally how it goes.

Your mileage is going to vary, depending on your facts because every case is different, and like every lawyer tells you, well it depends. It does, but these laws are really strong. They're designed to protect you. All you got to do is pay attention to who's trying to collect what from you, or what's appearing and/or what's appearing on your credit report so that you can catch these things early.

I do all of my cases on contingency. If you don't win, I don't get paid. That's an added measure of safety for you. If the disputes would resolve all these cases, I would be out of work. I'd have no business, but that isn't unfortunately the way it turns out. I hope this has been informative. This is how we get after being a victim of identity theft. I will look forward to seeing you soon.