Need some advice. Something weird happened. Woke up to find lots of emails (and they are legit emails, not phishing emails) from US credit card and loan companies saying I applied for credit with them. I obviously did not apply for any US credit card or loan, so it looks like someone might be trying to steal my identity. It could also be that someone with a similar name as me typed their email in wrong on all their applications and I received their email instead. Other than contacting all the companies who sent me an email to tell them I didn’t apply for credit, is there anything I should do?
I’d probably change your email password first, plus check any recovery email addresses you have on there? Maybe you should check the active sessions if possible. (Seems like they might have access to your email address?)
Maybe you’d then want to inform/check with the companies about what applications were made in your name. Is there any (personal) info in the emails you received?
You’re obviously not American and don’t live there, so it seems weird for someone to apply for credit in the US…but so many at once does seem odd…
(I assume the “view decision button” and sender addresses genuinely belong to the corresponding sites?)
Yes. I didn’t click on them just incase but they are legit. I went on the American Express site through google and tried to use reference number to get more info but I couldn’t because I don’t have a social security number….
I’m going to call the companies now and inform them I didn’t apply. I will also try to get them to confirm if the birthday used on the application is mine. If it is mine then definitely a case of identity fraud, but if it’s not then maybe someone with the same name as me typed their email wrong
I don’t see how it would make sense for anyone to apply for credit with your details and an email address they can’t access?
If they were genuinely trying to apply for credit in your name, they could use any email address besides your actual one, and they’d presumably need to click on the “confirm your email address” buttons to continue with the process anyway.
So I called AMEX US and they were totally useless.
Since I don’t have a US social security number they weren’t able to even search if there was an application made in my name. They advised me to call the Taiwan AMEX office since my account is with them, and they should be able to see if anything was applied for in my name, but I doubt they will be able to actually see anything since this new application was made to AMEX US.
The guy on the email also asked me to read the email address that the email was sent from to him, and he said he didn’t recognize the email. The email is DoNotReplyUS@service.americanexpress.com but after some quick googling it seems legit.
Got through to SoFi customer support. They were very nice, but the fraud team they needed to transfer me to are now out of office, so I should call back another time.
