If someone opened credit in your name — or a mixed file put a stranger’s accounts on your report — start at IdentityTheft.gov. The FTC report is free. It produces a recovery plan and an identity theft report you can give bureaus, furnishers, and collectors. A police report can help; it is not a substitute for the FTC file in most bureau processes.
This is identity protection and fraud blocking, not a shortcut to delete debts you actually opened. Filing a false identity-theft claim is a crime. Use the report for accounts and inquiries that are not yours.
Do these in parallel
When you need an FTC identity theft report
- A card, loan, or utility you never applied for appears on a bureau.
- Collectors call about a debt in your name that is not yours.
- Tax, unemployment, or medical identity theft that also hit the credit file.
- A mixed file (someone else’s tradelines merged onto yours). Treat the stranger accounts as not yours even if it was a bureau error rather than a thief.
Do not use IdentityTheft.gov to try to erase a collection you opened and later regretted. That path is a factual dispute or a validation request, not identity theft.
How to file (step by step)
- Open IdentityTheft.gov and start a report. Create an account so you can return to the recovery plan.
- List every fraudulent account, inquiry, and address you can see. Last four of the account is enough. Dates you discovered the fraud matter more than guessing the thief’s timeline.
- Answer whether you have a police report. If your local department will take one, file it and add the case number later. If they will not, the FTC report still stands.
- Download the Identity Theft Report PDF and the recovery checklist. Save them with your official credit reports.
- Place or confirm a credit freeze at Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Add an extended fraud alert if the site walks you through it — one bureau can often notify the other two.
What the report unlocks
- Fraudulent-account blocks. FCRA § 605B lets you ask a bureau to block tradelines that resulted from identity theft, with a valid report and a statement. The bureau has a short clock. This is different from a routine accuracy dispute.
- Extended fraud alert (typically seven years) so lenders take extra steps to verify it is you.
- Collector stop-contact. Send the report with a written notice that the debt is not yours. The FDCPA still applies to third-party collectors.
- A paper trail if you later file a CFPB complaint because a bureau or furnisher kept the fake account on the file.
After you file: the sequence that actually works
Freeze → FTC report → official three-bureau pull → block / dispute each fraudulent tradeline at the bureau and tell the furnisher. Then re-pull after the investigation window. Use the dispute-deadline calculator so you know when silence is itself a problem.
Close or freeze any bank or card account the thief used. Change passwords on email first — that is how most takeovers start. Opt out of most prescreened offers at OptOutPrescreen.com so new firm offers stop landing in a stolen mailbox.
If a named collector is chasing a fraudulent account, start with the collector page on the credit-repair hub plus the FTC report attached to your validation letter. Do not pay “to make it go away” on a debt that is not yours without talking to a consumer attorney or legal-aid clinic — payment can be treated as acknowledgment.
Where 850ai fits
850ai is software you operate. It can help you organize fraudulent vs legitimate tradelines and draft disputes or regulatory filings you still review. An FTC identity theft report is filed in your name on IdentityTheft.gov; you can complete that yourself at no cost. 850ai will not promise that a report deletes an account, and it will not treat a debt you opened as identity theft.
Educational only