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I am retired, 65 years old, live in Sacramento, CA and am the recent victim of Identity theft. To get to my point and question, an individual using my name, social security number and Date of birth contacted at least 2 new banks for the purpose of applying for new financial accounts/credit cards and in the case of one bank he was successful to the point of fraudulent purchases being made. This individual provided a Bronx New York address in both his applications! Red Flag!?! I immediately obtained copies of my credit reports from all 3 of the major bureaus and the evidence of his recent activity with these banks was clearly there. Since then I have been diligently working with both banks providing documentation and working to terminate those fraudulent accounts. Since then I have put a fraud alert on my 3 reports and frozen them as well. I have filed a police report and an Identity theft report. I have enrolled in one of the Identity Theft programs as well. As I have gone through this painful learning process I see the tremendous value of being made aware of (ASAP) any new inquiries from banks to review my credit reports, any new accounts showing up, new addresses that show up etc. The ability of the identity theft programs to check my credit reports on a daily basis and provide alerts of any new activity was the basis for me signing up for these services. I am finally getting to my question for the experts here on how credit reports work, specifically with regards to being frozen and being under a fraud alert. I had assumed that even if a report was frozen and could not be accessed by a bank that any such request to see that report would still be documented with the bank name and contact information. However I have been told by “help” staff with the Identity theft Services I have just recently signed up for that where accounts are frozen those inquiries would not be recorded as normally done, therefore I would see no such alerts. So what is the purpose of having the alert services? Without being able to document and trace where and how those fraudulent attempts come from there would seem there would be little chance to catch those criminals. Can anybody tell me if this is true, are bank requests to see “frozen” credit reports for the purpose of considering a loan or credit application not documented in the credit report as they normally would be? I also plan to write to each of the 3 bureaus with this question. Thank you! Bill Ward