What Is an Active Duty Fraud Alert?

A fraud alert is a notice placed on your credit report, signaling to potential creditors that your identity may be at risk. This prompts lenders to take extra steps to verify your identity before approving new credit requests. An active duty fraud alert is a specialized version designed to protect service members from identity theft and safeguard their financial well-being.

Understanding Active Duty Fraud Alerts

An active duty fraud alert serves as a specialized safeguard for military personnel, particularly beneficial for service members who may be deployed, frequently relocate, or have limited access to their mail and personal financial documents. The alert helps mitigate risks associated with managing finances when monitoring accounts regularly is challenging.

This alert functions by notifying businesses, such as lenders and creditors, that they must take additional steps to confirm your identity before opening new credit accounts or making changes to existing ones. This helps prevent unauthorized individuals from obtaining credit in a service member’s name. The three major credit bureaus—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—administer these alerts.

Placing an Active Duty Fraud Alert

To initiate an active duty fraud alert, a service member needs to contact only one of the three nationwide credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion. The contacted bureau is legally required to notify the other two credit reporting agencies to place the alert on your credit file, ensuring it applies across all major credit reports.

When placing the alert, the service member will need to provide identifying information to the credit bureau, including their full name, current and previous addresses, Social Security number, and date of birth. Proof of active duty status will also be required to qualify for this specific type of alert. Once verified, the credit bureau will add the active duty fraud alert to the service member’s credit file.

Effects and Duration of the Alert

Once an active duty fraud alert is placed, businesses are obligated to take reasonable steps to verify the service member’s identity before extending credit or opening new accounts. This might involve calling the service member directly or using a pre-established password, ensuring any new credit activity is genuinely initiated by the service member.

An active duty fraud alert remains in effect for 12 months from the date it is placed. Service members have the option to renew the alert if they remain on active duty and wish to maintain this protection. Placing this alert also automatically removes the service member’s name from prescreened credit and insurance offer marketing lists for two years, unless they specifically request to continue receiving them.

Removing an Active Duty Fraud Alert

Service members can request the removal of an active duty fraud alert at any time before its natural expiration. Unlike placing the alert, which requires contacting only one bureau, removing it necessitates contacting each of the three major credit bureaus individually to ensure it is lifted from all credit reports.

When requesting removal, service members should be prepared to provide specific information to each bureau to verify their identity. This includes personal details like full name, address, and Social Security number. The bureaus will use this information to confirm the authenticity of the removal request. Once verified, the alert will be removed from the service member’s credit file.