Heroes in Business - Experian Identity Report with Rod Griffin, Lifes Big Moments Taxes

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

Experian Identity Report with Rod Griffin, Lifes Big Moments Taxes. Rod Griffin is the Sr Director of Public Education for Experian. Extremely valuable information for making sure you know what to do when filing taxes. Listen as David Cogan, Host of the Heroes Show and Founder of Eliances entrepreneur community.      

Up in the sky, look, it's captivating, it's energizing, it's Eliance's Heroes. Eliance's is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities, and startups, where our heroes in business align. Now, here's your host flying in, David Kogan, founder of Eliance's. And we're back. By the way, make sure you check out past episodes like when I had the CEO of Experian on. You can go to Eliance's.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-S.com. Click on radio and you can see past episodes. All right. I'm so excited. That's right. Life's big moments. Taxes. It's our weekly Experian Identity Report. So we've got with us again, Rod Griffin. Yes.

Rod leads Experian's national consumer education programs and works with consumer advocates and their financial educators to help consumers increase their ability to understand and manage their personal finances and protect themselves from identity and fraud. All right. So here we are again. You know, Rod, I think this segment is also going to be extremely valuable for people who are filing their income taxes, right? What is going on? What is tax identity theft? Sure. And I have personal experience with that. So, you know, we talk about life events and taxes are an annual life event, a big one for us. And it's a huge identity risk. Just my personal story, a number of years ago, four or five years ago now, I got a tax refund check in the mail for $6,018, I think, something over $6,000.

And for a fleeting moment, I was really excited because, yay, I got a $6,000 tax return. And then it occurred to me, I hadn't filed my tax returns yet. So I had a problem. And it turns out that there was a breach and my identity tax returns were stolen and a fraud ring and then use them to file a false tax return. So that triggers a lot of things, you know, fear, anger, frustration and me making sure I knew exactly how our systems work. So there are a number of steps you can take, but tax ID fraud is a serious issue and it can lead to other kinds of identity. In my case, they got my full tax return, which meant they had all of my identity to use it for things beyond just taxes. Yeah, that must have been scary. And, you know, and to thought that, you know, someone invaded, you know, you're, I mean, it just, it just, I don't, I mean, I can't even imagine what the feeling was, would have been like. Yeah.

It was all of this. It's like having talked about death not too long ago. It was kind of the same thing. It's the grieving. It's fear. And then it's sadness. And then it's anger. And then it's, you know, it's anger. And then it's sort of urgency.

What do I do? And how do I take steps to protect myself and my identity? And that's when my experience was helpful because I knew I needed to contact the credit reporting companies and add a fraud alert. I knew that I needed to notify the IRS so that they could issue a fraud pin when I filed my taxes and that they could take steps to secure my identity. I knew that I needed to visit my police department and file a police report, a fraud report. And so took all of those steps and it worked well. You know, I've been very fortunate and

it stopped the fraud from going any further. Well, how do you go, I mean, how do you protect your information, though, from scammers that are online and on your phone if you use something like, I don't know, for example, TurboTax? Yeah, it's make sure you're working with known entities. One of the things we often say, you know, if you are working with an online tax preparation service, make sure it's a known entity. Make sure that you do some research. Find out, do they have good reviews? Do they work well? Does the IRS accept their services? Are they known? And then when you're working with them, make sure that you have strong passwords. Make sure that their sites are secure.

So you look for that little HTTPS and the little padlock, all of those things that you do. And then if you're logging in, make sure that you go to their website and log in. If you get an email saying, click here to log in. We want to help start your tax preparation. Don't click on that link. Go to their website because it could be a fraudster trying to get you to falsely log in. So be sure that you're working with the site that you know is the correct one. Okay. So walk us through the process because it's probably unfortunately going to happen to at least a number of people who are listening because of the odds. It's just

going to happen. So they may be listening to this now. It may have just happened to them or they know a family member that has or they know someone that has. So what should someone do though if someone steals your refund? So if someone steals your refund or files a refund falsely for you, step one, notify the IRS. So you go to the website, they'll have contact information. Let them know you're a victim of fraud. They can take steps then to help address that issue. Step two, I would notify the credit reporting agency. So go to Experian.com slash fraud and file what we call an initial security alert. It says, I believe I'm a victim of fraud.

Give you a free report. We'll give you then a chance to review it and make sure nothing's happening. If it is, file a police report, go to your local police station and they will be able to assist you. I live in a little town in Texas and being full of myself, I thought I'll go, I'll tell them what they need to do for me because I know. And I walked in and I told the police officer, I've been a victim of identity theft and he just popped my bubble completely. He said, give me a minute, I'll get the form, I have the fraud form, we'll help you. And at first I was disappointed because I didn't get to share my knowledge. And then I was thrilled because he knew exactly what he needed to do.

And so I filed that police report. You can then add an extended fraud victim statement to your report to make sure that it's being protected. The IRS will issue you a fraud PIN or a consumer protection PIN number so that you must provide it every time you file your tax returns in the future. Each year they give you a new PIN. They will reject that return if you do not provide the PIN number. So it does give you some significant protection in future years. So those are kind of the steps that you might want to freeze your credit file, depending on the severity of the situation and what's happening with product.

There's more than just that occurring. But that's sort of the, the, the last step may not be necessary. Great information. Again, you're watching, listening to me, David Kogan, host of the E-Liances Hero Show. Make sure that you go to E-Liances.com. Click on radio. You can listen to past episodes by the Experian Identity Report because we have with us again Rod Griffin, Senior Director of Public Education for Experian. Any other tools specifically within Experian that offer to help people that are victims

of this type of identity theft. So it happens to someone, they go to Experian.com, where do they navigate from there? So two things you can do and that are really important if you've been a victim. One, if you go to Experian.com, you can enroll in our free monitoring service or you can download our monitoring app. So go to the app store on your phone and download our monitoring service. We will give you immediate notification of something new comes to your credit report. We will give you free credit reports once a month, so you know exactly what's going on, free credit scores, as well as some other tools. So enroll in a good monitoring service. That can

be really helpful in terms of protecting yourself and responding if your identity is used again in the future. Great, great. Well, again, this has been, you know, phenomenal information. This has been the Experian Identity Report with Rod Griffin, Senior Director of Public Education for Experian. Make sure that you go to Experian.com. And Rod, it's always an honor having you here. We're, again, excited with the information that you shared. Because once again, you've been watching, listening to me, David Kogan, host of the Alliance's Hero. What are you going to do after this? You're going to go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-S.com, the only place where

entrepreneurs align. And make sure pass check out the past episodes where we've had a number of experts including ron on our show from experian thank you again rod we really appreciate your time today thank you david