Your credit can look normal while someone steals your identity

Key Points:

• Credit monitoring primarily detects new credit account fraud but may miss identity theft involving existing bank accounts, government benefits, medical records, phone accounts, direct payment scams, and personal data exposed through data brokers.
• Identity theft can occur without affecting your credit score, so regularly reviewing all financial accounts, tax records, medical bills, and phone accounts is crucial to spotting suspicious activity early.
• Additional protective measures include requesting an IRS Identity Protection PIN, securing mobile phone accounts against SIM swaps, and monitoring personal information exposure online through people-search sites.
• Comprehensive identity theft protection services offer broader monitoring beyond credit reports, including financial account alerts, dark web monitoring, phone takeover protection, and identity restoration assistance, but features vary by provider.
• If identity theft is suspected, immediate actions include contacting affected institutions, changing passwords, reporting to the FTC, freezing credit reports, and keeping detailed records to aid recovery efforts.