Thieves have stolen the personal information of half a million military personnel and their families. Including thousands who live in Southern Colorado. The break-in occurred two weeks ago in phoenix at tri-west healthcare alliance. Tri-West says there is a reasonable probability it was identity theft. All active duty.... retirees and their families and everyone enrolled in tricare prime health coverage should be concerned about this. If you are a Tri-Care member, Tri-West says your credit rating could be endangered. Tri-Care says it's working around the clock law enforcement to find out who stole four hard drives containing information on their customers. The stolen files include social security numbers...addresses...names, dates of birth and phone number. This includes calling your credit bureau and asking them to flag your credit file to be on alert for any unusual activity. No related fraud has been reported yet in connection with the triwest theft. But in cases of identity fraud...victims often don't know they've been ripped off. Tri-Care will soon be contacting all of the people it insures by mail. They recommend that members contact these credit bureaus to flag their accounts.

For more information, call TriWest at::
1-888-339-9378

For checking your credit report:
Equifax: 1-800-997-2493
Experian: 1-888-397-3742
Transunion: 1-800-916-8800

You can also get information from the federal government:
Federal Trade Commission Consumer Protection Dept.