What can I do if I have been the victim of identity fraud?

If you have been the victim of identity fraud and you are concerned about your financial information being misused, you may want to freeze your credit(external link) This will help prevent anyone from fraudulently obtaining credit in your name.

To request that your credit is frozen, you will need to contact the three national credit reporting companies (Centrix(external link), illion/Experian(external link), and Equifax(external link)). See our consumer rights under the Credit Reporting Privacy Code [PDF, 179 KB] for more information about this process.

More generally, you may also want to:

• Contact the Police to lay a complaint, as the scam may be illegal and the scammers may be criminals who can be found and prosecuted.
• Contact IDCARE(external link), a New Zealand and Australian-based service that offers free and anonymous support and advice to victims of identity fraud.
• Take the steps listed on the Department of Internal Affairs identity theft advice page(external link). This might including cancelling and replacing documents and reporting strange transactions. The important thing is to act fast to minimise the impact the identify fraud will have on you. 

Further guidance on what you can do if you have been the victim of fraud can be found through the Consumer Protection page of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment(external link).

For more general information about scams, see the Department of Internal Affairs page on scams(external link). For information about common online scams, see Netsafe’s page on scams(external link).

If you believe you were the victim of fraud due to an agency’s privacy breach, for example a finance company unlawfully shared your personal information, then you can make a complaint to us.

Updated October 2025