Place a fraud alert on your credit reports

The next thing is to follow up with three major credit bureaus – usually Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion – and then request a fraud alert that could be placed on your account.

The fraud alert then stays on your credit report for a year, and it usually notifies any institution that could eventually pull your credit report of the fact that your identity was compromised. “Just because you encountered a certain problem and it was fixed, doesn’t mean that the problem will simply go away.” according to White.

Your personal information might, and probably will, still circulate among scammers, and it might only be a matter of time until someone else wants to open a fraudulent account in your name.