<prompt> Human: My wife and I recently got married and her dad has been freaking out about her changing her last name and she thinks hes been using her social security number a couple of flags we have seen already1 he has opened a credit card in her name before. 2 he memorized her social before she did she recently gained citizenship from an immigrant status 3 he has been lobbying viciously to her whole family to not change her nameIf I could get some advice on how to fully investigate probable damages, as well as any solutions it would be much appreciated.TLDR: wife is a new immigrant and her father might be stealing her identity via social security numberEdit1: thank you all for the advice we will be checking her credit score soon and working from there :Assistant: Have her get copies of her credit reports from all 3 major credit bureaus at annualcreditreport.com Check if there are any accounts on there that are not hers.he has opened a credit card in her name before.And what was the resolution to this? Was the identity theft reported? Was the card shut down?She needs to lock down her credit report by freezing them. That way no new lines of credit can be opened unless she goes in an unfreezes her report. It will definitely help, but you also need to be vigilant and aggressive when it comes to people - no matter who it is - deciding that they want to take advantage of your wife by stealing her identity.Human: The account was frozen but the damage was done and I think we are paying off a 1000 or so debt to chase  <response>: but the damage was doneThat is not how it works. YOU should not be paying off anything for identity theft. It should be reported as the theft it is and Chase would not have held you liable for it - your father-in-law would be.If you continue to enable him and not report it, it will continue to happen. Honestly, if your father-in-law stole a few thousand dollars worth of merchandise from a store, would you go to the store and say it was you and then pay for it? Because that is what you are doing.He is willing to ruin her credit and life by stealing from his own daughter. And if he is willing to do it to her, I wouldnt doubt that he is doing it to others in his family. 