Dear EBB,

You say you are receiving letters from creditors, but in this case the businesses may not be contacting you about credit accounts. If the criminals are using your checks to make purchases, that doesn't involve credit.

Your credit reports do not contain information about bank accounts, including checking accounts. Therefore, it is very possible that the amount of the checks will never be reported to Experian or the other national credit reporting agencies.

The only way the amount would appear on your credit reports is if the businesses transferred or sold the amount of the bounced checks to collection agencies. Collection agencies would then report the debts, which would negatively affect your credit history.

I hope that because you are responding with fraud affidavits and police reports to the businesses additional collection activity is being stopped. To find out whether or not the bounced check amounts are being reported by a collection agency, get copies of your credit reports from each of the national credit reporting companies.

If they are not being reported, your best course of action is to continue working with the businesses as they contact you. That will prevent any damage to your credit history. It is always easier and wiser to prevent the information from being reported than it is to have it added to your credit history and then get it removed by the business.

You can't complete a fraud affidavit and police report as a preemptive tool. However, you could be an identity theft victim if the thief is also opening credit accounts in your name, so it would make sense for you to add a temporary security alert to your credit history. That will help protect you until you are able to review your reports and verify whether or not any further action is necessary.

I also suggest you contact one or more of the check verification services to ensure your check writing history is clear with them. That probably is more important in the case of stolen checks.

Thanks for asking.