You may get a letter from the International Revenue Service (I.R.S.) letting you know that your FAFSA account may have been hacked.

Last week, the I.R.S. Commissioner, John Koskinen, testified before the Senate Finance Committee that Free Application for Federal Student Aid (F.A.F.S.A.) information may have been stolen on up to 100,000 taxpayers. Some of this information was used to file about 8,000 fraudulent federal income tax returns, totaling about $30 million, with what appears to be another 66,000 returns filed but caught before the refunds were issued. If the IRS is suspicious that your account has been hacked or possibly used to file a fraudulent return, they will notify you by letter.  Here’s what you do if you get that letter:

1. Take the letter seriously. It does not mean someone has hacked your account, but your information is threatened.
2. File a local police report, just in case the thieves take further action with your private information.
3. File an alert with one of the three credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian or Transunion), and they will notify the other two. Order a free copy of your credit report to make sure that the problem is limited to tax information theft.
4. Continuously monitor your credit score just in case further use of their information is delayed. Your credit card company may offer your credit score online for free.
5. Even if you didn’t file a tax return, consider ordering a tax transcript or use the other IRS tools like “Where’s My Refund” to determine whether tax filings for this year and previous years appear correct. Do this in case someone else using your identity did file a wrongful return in your name.
6. Ensure that you are using high level of safeguards on your credit card/debit card accounts. For example, most cards use two-factor identification or allow you to set up credit card balance alerts. This helps you prevent and monitor for unusual activity on these cards.
7. Notify your bank and see what additional safeguards are available to protect your cash accounts.

In the meantime, some of the FAFSA tools will be offline so that they can be re-tooled with additional security for your protection.

 

Professor Valrie Chambers at [email protected] is responsible for the content of this message. This announcement is part of the Financial Friday series. Every Friday, students receive an announcement that is meant to bolster their financial wellness, including preventing financial mistakes, tips for safeguarding their assets including their financial identity and tips on how to critically think about financial decisions that need to be made.