Sam

Sam owns his own construction business and lives in Nashville with his wife. They are currently looking to buy a house they can retire in, so they can rent out their current house to their family. On April 19, while at the country club with his business partner, Sam got the real-time IdentityIQ alert that a P.O. box was opened in his name in Arizona. He knew something wasn’t right. This prompted him to call the IdentityIQ Customer Care Team for more information.

The initial consultation between Sam and our Fraud Restoration Department showed there were 15 hard inquiries on Sam’s credit report – all of which weren’t him. Our Fraud Restoration Department walked him through the process of filing a police report with his local authorities as well as with the Federal Trade Commission. We also took him through the steps of contacting the institutions that made the hard inquiries to report the fraud as well as placing a fraud alert with the major credit bureaus.

The dedicated fraud restoration specialist was able to support Sam through the entire process. He was able to successfully have the fraudulent hard inquiries removed from his credit report.

Another Scam 

On top of everything that was going on with Sam’s current case of identity theft, Sam, unfortunately, fell for a phishing email. A phishing email is a type of social engineering scam most commonly hidden in a fraudulent email where a criminal posing as a legitimate institution, such as a bank or service, tries to obtain sensitive information from a target victim.

From the information that was breached in the phishing email, the scammers were able to access Sam’s PayPal, Robinhood, Coinbase, Cash App, Venmo, and Amazon accounts. Luckily, we were able to help Sam move quickly and get most of his funds returned. Considering most cases like this rarely get their money back, it was another win we were able to help him recover almost all of his funds back.

The Results

Despite being able to remove the fraudulent hard inquiries from his credit report, Sam’s credit score wasn’t where he wanted it to be in order to purchase a home in the near future. He decided to use the IdentityIQ tools to take action and improve his credit score. And he was successful!

“In eight months, I have gone from low credit scores of 540s to now into the 700s and over eight-plus collection and charge-offs to zero negative items!,” Sam said. “Now I’m buying a new home, no credit card debt, I have an American Express card now with thousands in a credit line. No more annoying phone calls from debt collectors, and no more letters asking for money from creditors either! Ten stars all the way. Thank you to everyone at IdentityIQ!”  

Our Fraud Restoration Department is dedicated to helping and supporting our members, so they have peace of mind. Help protect yourself now and protect your credit and finances for your future goals by signing up for IdentityIQ services today!