How we help | Identity & privacy
Nearly everything that works here is free.
Freezes, fraud alerts, breach response, and data brokers. This is the page where the honest advice makes the weakest case for hiring anyone, so we'll just say that first.
Freeze, alert, monitoring compared: what each one blocks, what each one only tells you about.
1200 x 750The highest-value steps cost nothing and take an afternoon
We could write this page so the free controls sound complicated and the paid help sounds necessary. Plenty of sites do. Instead: freeze your credit at all three bureaus, fix your passwords, read your reports. That's most of your protection and it costs nothing.
Where help genuinely earns its cost is afterwards. A real identity theft case with multiple fraudulent accounts across several institutions is weeks of coordinated, documented work, and that's a different proposition from placing a freeze. Nobody needs us for step one. Plenty of people want us for step nine.
The core confusion
Freeze, alert, and monitoring do different jobs
These get treated as interchangeable. They aren't, and the difference decides whether you're preventing fraud or just finding out about it.
- Blocks new accounts being opened in your name, including by you.
- Lenders generally can't see your report until you lift it.
- Free to place and free to lift.
- Lasts until you lift it.
- No effect on your credit scores.
- You must place it at each bureau separately. Freezing one does nothing at the other two.
- Asks businesses to verify your identity before extending credit.
- Your report stays visible to lenders.
- Initial alert lasts one year and is renewable.
- Extended alert lasts seven years, and needs an FTC identity theft report or a police report.
- Active duty alert lasts one year, renewable for the length of deployment.
- Contact one bureau and it must notify the other two.
- Alerts you after something has changed on your file.
- Useful for visibility between your own report pulls.
- Does not prevent anything.
- Check whether it watches all three bureaus.
- Check what the restoration service actually commits to.
- Active duty servicemembers and National Guard members can get free electronic credit monitoring by contacting each bureau.
A freeze prevents a whole category of fraud at the point it would otherwise succeed. Monitoring tells you after the fact. Doing the free preventive thing first, then deciding whether you also want the paid informative thing, is the sequence that makes sense. Plenty of people buy monitoring and never freeze anything, which is backwards.
We do recommend a monitoring product, and we earn $5 when a new customer enrolls through our link. Saying so here rather than only on its own page: monitoring, and the free things to do first ->
Do it yourself
The free controls, in the order worth doing them
Freeze your credit at all three bureaus
Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, separately. Free to place and free to lift, and it lasts until you lift it. Lift it temporarily when you genuinely need to apply for something.
Read your credit reports
Free weekly at AnnualCreditReport.com. Accounts you don't recognize, addresses you've never lived at, and employers you never worked for are all early signals.
Fix your credentials
Unique passwords per account, held in a password manager, and multi-factor authentication everywhere it's offered. Prefer an authenticator app over text-message codes where you have the choice, because SIM takeovers are a real attack rather than a theoretical one.
Secure the email that controls everything else
Your primary email is the password reset mechanism for every other account you own. It deserves the strongest protection you have, and it's the first thing an attacker goes for.
Reduce what's publicly available
Work through the larger people-search and data-broker sites and submit opt-outs. Tedious, imperfect, and still worth doing.
If you do the first four this week, you've done more for your security than most paid services will do for you this year.
Recognizing it
The spelling-mistakes advice is twenty years out of date
Current attempts are well written, correctly branded, and timed to look plausible. A delivery notice the week you ordered something. A bank alert the day after a large transaction. The tell isn't bad grammar any more.
What the pattern actually looks like
- Urgency plus a link. Legitimate institutions can wait for you to log in yourself.
- A request for a code you just received by text. That request is the attack, every time.
- An unexpected call from "the fraud department" asking you to confirm details or move money.
- A message that matches something real happening in your life, because the attacker knows the season, the retailer, or the breach.
What to do instead, every time
- Never follow a link from a message to log in. Open the app, or type the address yourself.
- Hang up and call the number printed on your card.
- Never read out a one-time code. Nobody legitimate asks.
- When something feels urgent, that's the moment to slow down rather than speed up.
Recovery
If accounts have been opened in your name
Move in this order, and document everything with dates. The order matters because step one unlocks rights you'll need in the steps after it.
Go to IdentityTheft.gov
The FTC's official reporting site generates an identity theft report and a personalized recovery plan. That report is what unlocks several of the rights that follow, including the extended fraud alert. Do this first, today.
Place a fraud alert, and freeze if you haven't
Contact one bureau and it must notify the other two. An extended alert lasting seven years requires the FTC identity theft report or a police report.
Contact each affected institution's fraud department
Close or freeze the fraudulent accounts, in writing where possible, and keep every reference number.
Dispute the fraudulent entries with each bureau
Separately, with the identity theft report attached. How investigations work.
Consider a police report
Some institutions require one, and it supports the extended alert.
Keep checking
Fraudulent accounts surface over months, not days. Weekly report pulls are free, and this is the one chore worth putting a recurring reminder on.
Identity theft reports are for actual identity theft. Filing one about a debt you genuinely owe is a crime, and the FTC published a consumer alert in January 2026 warning about exactly this, after influencers began promoting it as a credit trick. It carries fines, prison time, or both.
We will help a real victim document a real case, thoroughly. We will not help anyone file a false one, and we'd rather lose the work than have that conversation.
Exposure
People-search sites, and realistic expectations about them
Your address, phone number, relatives, and former addresses are probably listed on dozens of data-broker sites right now, assembled from public records and purchased data.
Many brokers offer opt-out processes, and some are required to by state law. Working through them is genuinely worthwhile, particularly if you have a safety reason.
It's also ongoing rather than a one-time fix. Records frequently reappear as brokers re-acquire data from their sources, so expect to recheck periodically and keep a record of what you submitted and when.
A caution on removal services. Some require you to hand over more personal information than the brokers already had, which is a strange trade. Read what you're giving them, and what happens to it if you cancel.
We won't promise your information can be removed from the internet. Nobody can, and privacy guarantees are the single most oversold product in this category.
Where we come in
What we can realistically add
Worth paying for
- Coordinating recovery in a genuine identity theft case.
- Organizing documentation across multiple institutions and three bureaus.
- Tracking disputes over the months these actually take.
- Reading investigation results properly and knowing what to do with a "verified" outcome.
- Walking the prevention checklist with someone who'd rather not do it alone.
- Sorting out a mixed file where someone else's information has merged with yours.
What nobody can promise
- That your information will be removed from the internet.
- That you won't be targeted again.
- That every fraudulent item will come off your reports.
- A timeline for a recovery that depends on other institutions.
- Prevention of identity theft itself. The free controls reduce risk; nothing eliminates it.
Related
If this wasn't quite your situation
Questions
What people actually ask
Freeze or fraud alert, which should I use?
They do different things. A credit freeze blocks new accounts from being opened in your name, including by you, and lenders generally can't see your report until you lift it. A fraud alert leaves your report visible but asks businesses to verify your identity before extending credit.
A freeze is the stronger control. An alert is lighter-touch and is what comes automatically alongside certain identity theft protections. Many people use both.
Does a freeze cost anything or hurt my credit?
No to both. There is no cost to place or lift a credit freeze, and it lasts until you lift it. A freeze has no effect on your credit scores and doesn't stop you using accounts you already have.
You do have to place it separately at Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Freezing at one does nothing at the other two, which is the step people miss.
How long does a fraud alert last?
An initial fraud alert lasts one year and is renewable. An extended fraud alert lasts seven years but requires that you have experienced identity theft and have completed an FTC identity theft report at IdentityTheft.gov or filed a police report.
Active duty servicemembers can place an active duty alert for one year, renewable for the length of deployment. For any alert, you contact one bureau and that bureau must notify the other two.
Is paid identity monitoring worth it?
Sometimes, and it's worth knowing what you're buying. Monitoring tells you after something has happened. A freeze prevents a category of it from happening at all. Doing the free preventive things first is the better sequence.
If you do buy monitoring, check whether it watches all three bureaus and what the restoration service actually commits to. Active duty servicemembers and National Guard members can get free electronic credit monitoring by contacting each bureau directly.
We recommend SmartCredit, and Ninja Credit Consultants receives $5 when a new customer enrolls through our link. That is the entire compensation and it does not change what you pay. The full reasoning, including why the free controls matter more, is on our monitoring page.
Can I get my information removed from people-search sites?
Partially, and it's ongoing work rather than a one-time fix. Many data brokers offer opt-out processes, some required by state law, and records frequently reappear as brokers re-acquire data from their sources.
Expect to work through brokers individually, keep a record of what you submitted and when, and recheck periodically. Be cautious with removal services that require you to hand over more personal data than the brokers already have.
My data was in a breach. What should I actually do?
Freeze your credit at all three bureaus if you haven't, change the password on the breached account and anywhere you reused it, and turn on multi-factor authentication. Then watch your reports, which are free weekly.
Breach notification letters often include a free monitoring offer. Taking it is fine, and it isn't a substitute for the freeze. Be alert for follow-up phishing: attackers know who was breached and when, and time their messages accordingly.
Sources
Check our work
Every procedural claim on this page comes from the FTC. None of these links are monetized.
Educational content only. NCC does not provide legal advice of any kind. NCC cannot guarantee prevention of identity theft, removal of personal information from third-party databases, or any particular recovery outcome.
Dealing with something now, or being preventive?
If you're mid-incident, do the IdentityTheft.gov step first, today, then talk to us. If you're being preventive, the checklist above is genuinely most of it, and we're here if you'd rather have company doing it.