Traveling? Protect Your Identity and Credit

 3 tips to ensure you safeguard your personal assets and business credit worthiness.

 Credit plays an important role to many business owners in their daily operations.  Many vendors actually pull personal and business credit as a way of qualifying business owners’ application to work with them. Banks pull credit not only for loan purposes but also to open personal and business checking/saving accounts. Recently, a client of mine that travels between Columbia and the U.S. for business was made aware that her checking account was closed while she was away.     Due to unforeseen circumstances, she had to put her business on hold as she was unable to collect funds from clients or pay vendors.  The most challenging part was the unknown steps she needed to take to resolve this problem.  In fact, credit is still a mystery even to lending institutions’ as they were unable to assist her. After speaking to me, Aimee found out what happened. She was a victim of fraud and the credit bureau called ChexSystems had her file reporting “uncollectable savings account abuse”.

What is ChexSytems?

In many instances checking and savings account activity does not appear on your credit report, most financial institutions report misconduct to a database called ChexSystems. Types of activity that may be reported  to ChexSystems include:

• Having your account closed involuntarily by the financial institution.
• Bouncing checks. Financial institutions will typically only report people who fail to pay the non-sufficient fund fees and/or bounce checks habitually, not those that do it once by mistake.
• Overdrawing your account. Being in the red a day or two before depositing funds will not generally get you reported to ChexSystems, but if you fail to add money after a reasonable period of time or you repeatedly overdraw, the chances are good that you will be reported.
• Committing an act of fraud, such as altering checks or providing false information about your identity.
• Applying for a checking account, ordering checks, or reporting a check or debit card lost or stolen. Most of the time, these activities are perfectly legitimate and will not be held against you, but they can be a sign of fraudulent activity, which is why financial institutions may report them to ChexSystems.

This caused the bank  to close her checking account and other lenders not accept her as a client. Identity theft is a very big issue in the United States.

So if you travel often make sure to take these three steps to protect your identity and credit:

1. Understand your current position:  Order your credit report before you start to travel through annualcreditreport.com. 2. Place a “fraud alert” on your credit report with the three main bureaus.  Everything stems from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Proof of identity will be requested by the credit bureaus.  With a fraud alert, businesses must verify your identity before credit is issued.  Include your current contact information to the bureaus.

• Equifax 1 (888) 378-4329
• Experian 1 (888) 397 3742
• TransUnion 1 (800) 916-8800

3.  Mark your calendar.  The initial fraud alert stays on your report for 90 days.  You can continue to renew it. Aimee’s issue has been resolved and her operations resume.  Fortunately her story had a happy ending, but it did cost her thousands of dollars along with much stress and aggravation. Travel with peace of mind, protect yourself and your company and place a fraud alert on your credit report.

Know Your Credit Rights

Consumer reporting agencies, including ChexSystems, are regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act.

Below are five of the important rights these laws give you:

1.   You are entitled to a free copy of your ChexSystems report annually (if you have a report). 2.   You have a right to dispute errors in your report. In most cases, ChexSystems must investigate and remove any inaccurate information within 30 days. 3.   Access to your report is limited to those that have a legitimate business need to see it. 4.   If you believe that you have been the victim of identity theft, you can place a security alert or freeze on your report. An alert notifies financial institutions that your identity was stolen and that if someone tries to open an account in your name, they should verify that it is actually you. A freeze prevents any institution that does not have a preexisting relationship with you from accessing your report. 5.   If the information in your report is used to take adverse action against you, the financial institution must notify you of the fact, and you are entitled to obtain a free copy of your report from ChexSystems within 60 days.

Some insights on credit and identity theft from three major credit card companies: 

American Express: CreditSecure | Credit Monitoring & Fraud Protection MasterCard on identity theft Visa how to avoid Identity theft

Related content:

Your Credit – Your Friend or Your Foe? 13 Quick Tips

Do’s and Don’ts of Credit Best Practices

Better Credit Score Helps Your Business