Your credit can look normal while someone steals your identity

You check your credit score, see nothing unusual and assume your identity is safe. But what if someone has already stolen your personal information and your credit report shows absolutely nothing? That's entirely possible.

Credit monitoring can help detect certain types of identity theft, particularly fraud involving new credit accounts. However, criminals can also target your existing bank accounts, retirement savings, government benefits and phone number without triggering a traditional credit alert. As a result, a clean credit report can give you a false sense of security. Here's what credit monitoring can catch, what it might miss and how to better protect yourself.

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IDENTITY THEFT PROTECTION IS CHANGING: WHAT TO LOOK FOR

Credit monitoring tracks changes to your credit file. Depending on the service, it can alert you to suspicious activity involving your credit history.

Common alerts include:

These alerts can help you discover new account fraud before the damage grows. However, credit monitoring depends on information that lenders and other companies report to credit bureaus. Therefore, it cannot reliably detect identity theft that occurs entirely outside the credit reporting system.

Criminals have several ways to misuse your information, steal money or make you more vulnerable to fraud without triggering a traditional credit monitoring alert. Here are six situations worth watching for.

A criminal gains access to your existing checking account, savings account, retirement account or payment app. Because the account already exists, the takeover may never appear on your credit report. Instead, you might first discover the theft through an unfamiliar transaction or a notification from your financial institution.

Someone uses your Social Security number to file a fraudulent tax return or claim government benefits. You may receive an IRS notice about a tax return you never filed. Alternatively, you could discover unemployment benefits claimed in your name. Neither situation necessarily changes your credit score.

A thief uses your health insurance information to receive medical care, prescriptions or equipment. You might then receive bills for services you never used. Even worse, someone else's medical information could end up in your records. Traditional credit monitoring generally will not detect the misuse itself, although unpaid debts could eventually create other financial complications.

Criminals may convince your mobile carrier to transfer your phone number to a SIM card or device they control. Once they have your number, they may intercept certain verification codes and attempt to access your accounts. A sudden loss of cellular service could be an early warning sign, especially if you did not request a change.

A scammer tricks you into authorizing a wire transfer, sending money through a payment app or purchasing gift cards. Because you initiated the payment, even under false pr