If you have been the victim of identity theft, your credit report (and score) has almost certainly taken a hit.

The good news is that boosting your credit score following identity theft is possible. It might be challenging, but there are definitely ways to get it done.

Obviously the credit bureaus and your creditors and lenders will not be aware that you are a victim of identity theft. Unless you tell them, the lenders will just assume it is you who is taking out the new lines of financing and not paying things back. This will really mess up your credit report.

If your report has already been damaged, here are the 4 steps you have to take to repair it:

Get your credit report from all 3 bureaus

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Often times looking over their credit report is what first lets people know their identity has been stolen. However, if you already know you have been the victim of identity theft, it is still important to look over your reports from all 3 bureaus. In most instances, you will find more evidence you did not know previously.

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After all, the thieves will probably use your information to take out new lines of credit, not pay them back, and let you reap the negative affects. You might not even know this unless you looked at your credit report. Therefore, make sure to look through all your reports and take careful notice of any lines of credit you did not open, and money spent you did not account for. If you have unpaid balances, it will obviously hurt your score significantly.

Do a police report

After you have done the above step, now it is time to do a police report. This is the first step for recovering your score once the damage has been done. Since identity theft happens so frequently, today all you have to do is call up the police where you live and do the report by phone. Just be sure you get the report number from them, because you will need this when you have to call up the various bureaus and creditors.

Get in touch with the lenders

Once you have a list of lenders, you must start contacting them to let them know immediately what has happened. Otherwise, you will begin getting collection calls. You might want to call them, as well as send them a letter. Attach the police report with the letter for further proof.

Improve your credit score

Once you have taken the above measures, you have to begin getting the mistakes erased from your credit report. Of course, this can often be a time consuming process, because the bureaus have to look into everything before they erase it. Just be patient, and you will get your credit report fixed shortly.