Miami · Credit reportsSomeone opened credit cards in your name in Miami. Here's how to get them blocked.

McMillan Law's office is in Tampa. I represent people in Miami and everywhere else in Florida, and the free case review happens by phone or online, so you don't have to drive anywhere to get started.

Last reviewed October 10, 2026 by Jackson McMillan, Florida attorney

Credit cards you never opened, showing up in Miami

It often starts with a no. You apply for an apartment in Miami-Dade or finance a car, and the answer comes back denied. Or a collector calls about a department store card you have never seen. When you finally pull your reports, there are accounts in your name tied to an address you don't recognize, sometimes several opened within the same few weeks.

Fraud rings are a familiar story across South Florida: groups that gather stolen names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers and use them to open credit in bulk. You may never learn how your information got out, and you don't need to. What the law cares about is what sits on your report and what the companies do once you tell them it's fraud.

Signs that point to identity theft rather than an ordinary reporting mistake:

• New cards or loans you never applied for, often opened close together.
• Hard inquiries from lenders you never contacted. My page on hard inquiries you didn't authorize explains how to challenge those.
• An address, phone number, or employer in the personal information section that has nothing to do with you.
• Collection letters for balances you never ran up.

If the strange accounts belong to a relative or someone whose name is close to yours, and nobody used your identity, that's a different problem with different tools. See mixed credit files.

Block or dispute? Two tools Miami fraud victims should use together

The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) controls what goes on your credit report and what the companies behind it must do. For identity theft it offers two separate tools, and many people only hear about one of them.

The block comes from 15 U.S.C. § 1681c-2. Bureaus may turn down or later lift a block in a few narrow situations, one being a request made by mistake. Put only genuine fraud on your list.

Put a dispute in the same envelope. The dispute is what starts the card issuer's legal duty: once a bureau forwards it, the issuer has to look into it, weigh your documents, and fix or remove whatever it can't verify. A complaint sent only to the issuer doesn't start that duty, although mailing the issuer a copy still strengthens your record.

Two free-report rights help here too. Asking for an initial fraud alert entitles you to a free report from each nationwide bureau, which must arrive within 3 business days of your request. An extended alert, which requires an identity theft report, lasts seven years and entitles you to two free reports in the 12 months after you place it.

Identity theft cases I take from Miami-Dade County

I represent people in Miami and throughout Miami-Dade County whose credit was hijacked by someone else. That includes students at Florida International University and the University of Miami who discover the fraud the first time they apply for credit on their own. With a short credit history, a handful of fraud accounts can crowd out the little real history a lender has to go on. The same goes for anyone new to South Florida with a thin file.

If English isn't your first language, as is true for many people in Miami-Dade's large Spanish-speaking community, a dense letter from a credit bureau is easy to set aside for later. Please don't let one sit. Upload each letter the day it arrives, and I'll explain what it says and which deadline it starts.

On a Miami identity theft case, my work usually includes:

• Lining up each fraud account with its inquiry, address, and opening date so the pattern is obvious.
• Preparing a block request and a dispute for every bureau that shows the fraud.
• Tracking each bureau's 4-business-day block deadline and 30-day dispute deadline.
• Holding a bureau or issuer responsible under the FCRA if fraud stays on your report after you proved it.

What a bureau or card issuer may owe you

If a bureau or creditor carelessly keeps reporting a fraud account after you've shown it isn't yours, the FCRA lets you recover your actual damages. Those can include a lost lease or loan, a higher interest rate, postage and copying costs, time away from work, and the anxiety of being chased for debts a stranger ran up.

Timing matters here. Generally, the losses you can claim are those that followed the company's failure to act on your block or dispute. The thief caused the first round of damage; a bureau or issuer that ignores the rules is answerable for what follows.

A willful violation, meaning knowing or reckless, opens the door to statutory damages of $100 to $1,000 as a substitute for proving actual losses, and to punitive damages. You also need a concrete harm, such as the fraud account going out on a report to a landlord or lender. Florida state courts, including the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade, require that just as federal courts do.

Win an FCRA case, and the law shifts your reasonable attorney's fees and costs onto the company that violated it. You don't pay me unless you win. I take these cases on contingency: no attorney's fees and no case costs owed to me unless you recover money. If a case is lost, a court can sometimes order the losing side to pay the other side's court costs, and some Florida laws, including the security deposit and deceptive practices statutes, also let the winner recover attorney's fees from the loser. I explain that risk before anything is filed, and every term is in a written agreement before you sign. For the full damages rules, read my guide to FCRA claims over credit report errors, and for more on fraud, see fraud accounts that keep reappearing.

Deadlines to put on your calendar

• 4 business days. The bureau's deadline to block fraud information once it has all four items.
• 3 business days. How quickly each nationwide bureau must send your free report after you ask for an initial fraud alert.
• 30 days. The general limit for a regular dispute, or 45 if you disputed after your free annual report. Sending new, relevant information in the first 30 days can stretch it by up to 15.
• 5 business days. If a deleted fraud item is ever put back, the bureau must tell you in writing within this window.
• 2 years. How long you have to file suit after learning of the bureau's or creditor's violation, never more than 5 years after it.

That two-year clock runs from the company's failure, not from the day the thief opened the account.

Your first week after finding fraud accounts

• Freeze your credit at Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. It costs nothing and keeps most new lenders from seeing your file.
• Ask for an initial fraud alert and request the free reports that come with it.
• Prepare an identity theft report, such as the FTC Identity Theft Report. What you write becomes part of your record, so send me a draft first if you can.
• List every fraud account and inquiry with the date it was opened and the bureau that shows it.
• Mail a block request and a dispute to each bureau by certified mail, with copies of your proof. My guide to writing a credit report dispute has a sample letter you can adapt.
• Don't pay a collector on a fraud account just to stop the calls. Florida's consumer collection law forbids pursuing a debt the collector knows is not legitimate.
• Send it to me. Upload your reports, the fraud list, and any bureau responses for a free case review. I'll let you know if the FCRA gives you a claim and what I'd do first.