Bank sent my credit report to wrong fax #, honest teacher called me, what do I do ?

Question

A WAMU employee sent my full credit report to the wrong fax # at a public Texas high school walk-up fax machine!! By full report, I mean address, social security number, employer, all bank/credit accounts, income, residential living history, uhh...everything. I have already placed fraud alerts, but my concern isn't existing accounts - it's the accounts I don't know about that get opened, now and forever. >:-( The teacher said it may have been there for a few hours and looked ruffled, so there's no guarantee a copy was not made of it and now..distributed through-out the high school. Besides a complete credit freeze, what should be done and what legal rights do I have ? I don't want to change my SS#, but I will, per your answers...

Answer 1

I suppose it depends on who's mistake it actually was. If you are sure that it was WAMU employees mistake, get a free consult from an attorney to determine your next course of action.  Perhaps you can make them pay for Identity theft protection, they may even provide the service at no cost to you.

Answer 2

My question is....why was the credit report faxed anyway? Did you request it? If you did and it was faxed to a wrong number by mistake I doubt there is anything you can do. Most banks have disclosures on their fax cover sheet freeing them of unauthorized hands receiving the information.

Personally I would not worry about your identity being stolen in a school if someone passed out your report. Most identity theifs do it for a living and use illegal methods to gain information, not stroll school halls looking for credit reports. Most likely the only person who saw it was the teacher who called, however it is worth keeping a check on.

Answer 3

You may have some legal issues here with the WAMU employee, I would get some professional counseling on that to see what you can do.  Also, you probably are jumping to some extreme conclusions.  MOST likely, everything is fine, but I would stay on top of your credit reports, contact your banks and any other places and just let them know of the situation.