Fraudulently opened bank accounts

[Tree Frog]

In the last couple of days, we have had 3 internet bank accounts opened under a family member's name that the family member didn't open. Somehow, this family member's information is connected with a different family member's email accounts, so she received the emails and notified family member. Family member (FM) notified internet bank that the account was fraudulent, the bank closed the first 2 accounts, and FM locked credit down, We're also looking to purchase an identity protection plan that will proactively look for issues like this. Tonight, other family member received another email from the same bank about FM's just opened account. Normally we wouldn't be notified about accounts being opened under our names except for the emails being sent to the other family member. We've speculated that the identity thief had FM's social security number to be able to open the accounts and the bank is verifying identity thief's identity with the email. 

How do we find out if other accounts are opened under FM's name? They don't show up on credit reports. 

We realize that if we were to get a mortgage or loan, these accounts would show up and could cause us problems. What other ramifications are there? How do we stop it?

Interestingly enough, the other family member receives emails from FM's alma mater. Those are the only emails she receives addressed to FM, so we suspect the university's student information was compromised. 

[footballmom]

What a mess, I’m so sorry.  There are some store credit cards that do a “soft” credit check and will issue credit immediately. We unfortunately ran into this when someone had a family member’s social and opened up a credit account with a major retailer (I don’t want to say who because it was way too easy to do and created so many headaches for us). The identity thief spent thousands on the spot and we only found out when they were kind enough to have our address on the credit card statement.  It didn’t show up when we first found out about the identity theft and we’re looking for opened accounts.  We froze that family member’s ability to apply for credit through Experian et Al directly. 

[Janeway]

You can put a notice in with the credit bureaus. There is something you can also do to lock down the credit rating. 

[Tree Frog]

This isn't a credit card issue. We've dealt with those before, but we've never dealt with checking and savings accounts being opened fraudulently. FM said they didn't see bank accounts on the credit reports they pulled today. Apparently this internet bank doesn't require a credit check to open both savings and checking accounts. 

[Wildcat]

I can't help with the accounts already opened, but most banks/credit unions use something called ChexSystems.  They'll run someone's info through it to see if they've written bad checks, etc, and can deny an account based on what's in the ChexSystems file.

It has been advised by experts to lock down your name with them as well as with the credit bureaus, so I'd do that to (hopefully) prevent more fraudulent accounts being opened.

https://www.chexsystems.com/

 

 

[Rachel]

We had something similar happen with credit cards. Let’s just say, someone had A LOT of fun in our name and was opening accounts faster than we could close them. 

File a police report. That will help document in the future if the thief does take out loans. They may also be using the SS# for work. 

It took us a little time to clear up but anything that can not be proven to be legitimately yours has to be removed from your credit history within a specified period of time (30 days?). The police report can help document the stolen identity. The reporting agencies have made it very easy to dispute. The thief will hopefully quickly realize they have exhausted all avenues with your FM and move on. 

[marbel]

When I worked for a bank recently we advised people to

- freeze their credit with a credit bureau to stop the ID thief from trying to take out loans. This would also have the effect of stopping additional bank accounts being opened if the bank did a soft credit check. (Ours did, and a credit freeze did stop the account opening process.)

- contact the Federal Trade Commission ID theft website for assistance in clearing up the ID theft mess.

- alert any financial institutions where legitimate accounts are held, to let them know ID theft has occurred. Honestly I am not sure what they would do about it - I was in one of those jobs where I had a script to work from and was never privy to the reasons for things. 

- file a police report. Police aren't going to investigate anything (people often thought they would) but as a pp said, it is good for documentation. 

[vonfirmath]

Note it takes time for new accounts to show up on your credit report. (about a month) So keep checking --but the fact that these accounts were not there yet means you likely caught it early.

 

[Wildcat]

Another thought is to open an account with Credit Karma. They monitor two of the big three credit bureaus and are pretty quick to let you know if your credit has been checked (For hard pulls; I don't think they detect soft pulls) and again if an account involving a line of credit has been opened.

I don't know of any way to monitor for fraudulent bank accounts, though, as bank accounts don't show up on credit reports.

Edited to add: this obviously won't help you with accounts that have already been opened, but could help going forward.

Edited March 31, 2023 by Wildcat

[Tree Frog]

3 hours ago, Wildcat said:

Another thought is to open an account with Credit Karma. They monitor two of the big three credit bureaus and are pretty quick to let you know if your credit has been checked (For hard pulls; I don't think they detect soft pulls) and again if an account involving a line of credit has been opened.

I don't know of any way to monitor for fraudulent bank accounts, though, as bank accounts don't show up on credit reports.

Edited to add: this obviously won't help you with accounts that have already been opened, but could help going forward.

We decided to go with Force Identity (don't want the thread searchable, so switch the 2 names and put them together) to monitor our identities. They require a lot of personal information that, if hacked, would provide a motherlode of information. We haven't added credit cards, bank accounts, or social media. I'm not entirely comfortable doing that. I did like that they ran a scan on my email and brought up several security alerts. There weren't any alerts on DH's email address.

The internet bank is _lly. (I don't want this thread searchable. Put an 'A' in the blank.) Apparently there were problems with their debit cards being compromised. The fraud person dh spoke with today indicated they've had a lot of calls recently about the same problem we're having.

[Tree Frog]

12 hours ago, vonfirmath said:

Note it takes time for new accounts to show up on your credit report. (about a month) So keep checking --but the fact that these accounts were not there yet means you likely caught it early.

 

We just put a freeze on the 3 main credit reporting agencies. I don't remember the name of the fourth one, but when I remember it, we'll freeze there, too.

[vonfirmath]

The three I know about are Transunion, Equifax and Experian  (Experian is the one I've been unable to access)

 

[Tree Frog]

3 hours ago, Wildcat said:

Another thought is to open an account with Credit Karma. They monitor two of the big three credit bureaus and are pretty quick to let you know if your credit has been checked (For hard pulls; I don't think they detect soft pulls) and again if an account involving a line of credit has been opened.

I don't know of any way to monitor for fraudulent bank accounts, though, as bank accounts don't show up on credit reports.

Edited to add: this obviously won't help you with accounts that have already been opened, but could help going forward.

We joined a identity monitoring company and put freezes on our accounts. Hopefully that will be enough.

 

13 hours ago, marbel said:

When I worked for a bank recently we advised people to

- freeze their credit with a credit bureau to stop the ID thief from trying to take out loans. This would also have the effect of stopping additional bank accounts being opened if the bank did a soft credit check. (Ours did, and a credit freeze did stop the account opening process.)

- contact the Federal Trade Commission ID theft website for assistance in clearing up the ID theft mess.

- alert any financial institutions where legitimate accounts are held, to let them know ID theft has occurred. Honestly I am not sure what they would do about it - I was in one of those jobs where I had a script to work from and was never privy to the reasons for things. 

- file a police report. Police aren't going to investigate anything (people often thought they would) but as a pp said, it is good for documentation. 

I'm thinking the internet bank didn't do a soft credit check, but we now have freezes on the big 3 credit agencies.

I wouldn't have thought to notify other financial institutions. We'll do that tomorrow morning.

[Tree Frog]

Just now, vonfirmath said:

The three I know about are Transunion, Equifax and Experian  (Experian is the one I've been unable to access)

 

Those are the ones we put freezes on. At some point, I thought there was a fourth one.

[Tree Frog]

13 hours ago, Rachel said:

We had something similar happen with credit cards. Let’s just say, someone had A LOT of fun in our name and was opening accounts faster than we could close them. 

File a police report. That will help document in the future if the thief does take out loans. They may also be using the SS# for work. 

It took us a little time to clear up but anything that can not be proven to be legitimately yours has to be removed from your credit history within a specified period of time (30 days?). The police report can help document the stolen identity. The reporting agencies have made it very easy to dispute. The thief will hopefully quickly realize they have exhausted all avenues with your FM and move on. 

We've had someone steal our cc number. I think the woman bought her college aged nephew a gaming something or other because he called UPS to ask where it was. Of course, the order had been cancelled because I notified the company that I hadn't made the purchase. I was able to get various bits of information each time I called either the cc company, the vendor, and UPS. UPS was more than willing to share what they knew with me. 😂

We likely wouldn't know a bank account had been opened under our name until we went to pay taxes or get a mortgage, which is the frightening part. Fraudulent financial issues could cause one of us to lose our job.

[vonfirmath]

I think you are thinking something like Chex Systems? It's either a background system or something the banks use

 

[Wildcat]

11 hours ago, Tree Frog said:

Those are the ones we put freezes on. At some point, I thought there was a fourth one.

There are actually a bunch of different places where one could freeze their credit. Cell phone companies, insurance companies, insurance companies, and others use different agencies. Isn't that a terrifying thought?

The government's CFPB's website has a list of places and links that will take you to each place to place a freeze. Most people are OK doing just the big three, Innovis (probably the 4th one you're thinking about), and maybe their CLUE report. ( https://www.consumerfinance.gov/consumer-tools/credit-reports-and-scores/consumer-reporting-companies/companies-list/?topics=freeze-your-report).