By Sabrina Karl

It’s estimated that almost 4 in 10 Americans experienced the two most common types of identity theft during 2019 and 2020, with numbers projected to rise by the end of this year. With those odds, it’s wise to regularly monitor your bank and credit accounts, as well as your credit scores and reports.

So what do you do if you notice unauthorized activity? The sooner you notice and act on it, the better. And if that happens, the first place to go is IdentityTheft.gov, run by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The FTC’s reporting site is well set up to guide you through the steps you should take if you notice suspicious activity on any of your accounts or credit reports. Though you can report identity theft to the FTC by phone, doing so online is far better, as it results in you receiving an official “ID Theft Report”, which you can use as proof that your identity was stolen.

Equally useful about reporting online at IdentityTheft.gov is that, if you create an account, you’ll receive access to their step-by-step guidance on how to deal with your identity theft, from who to contact first and how to place fraud alerts on your accounts, to whether you should call the police.

By creating an account to report your identity theft, the FTC’s site will create a personalized “recovery plan” for you, and then walk you through every step. It will update your plan as needed, track your progress through the steps, and even pre-fill forms and letters you’ll need to fix your affected accounts.

Recovering from identity theft is no picnic. But the longer it takes you to notice or act, the more tangled the problem becomes. Visiting IdentityTheft.gov is your smartest first move to minimize and fix the damage.