Posted on 04/17/2013 6:29:44 AM PDT by Kid Shelleen
--snip-- For years, the credit bureaus and their subsidiaries have been pitching costly "credit protection" or "credit-monitoring" services. Sign up, and you may pay $15 a month for a product that comes with a catchy jingle and good production values, but offers little else to distinguish it from paying close attention to your own credit reports.
But since the mid-2000s, there has been a relatively cheap - sometimes free - way to combat new-account fraud: a security freeze. The trouble is, it doesn't make any money for the credit-reporting agencies that trade in your personal data, so Experian. Equifax and TransUnion do little to publicize it. In essence, the bureaus are encouraging you to pay monthly fees for credit-monitoring and -alert services, so you'll be quick to discover, after the fact, that you've been victimized. Meanwhile, they're almost hiding a better alternative: By giving you control over who can obtain data from your credit report, a security freeze can block new-account fraud before it happens.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
Had mine and kids frozen for years. They do charge an tempoary unfreeze fee, but better that other “credit protection” out there.
Someone can still get credit in your name if the credit issuer doesn’t check credit. For instance, those companies who give credit cards to college students.
Actually I’m waiting for a class action lawsuit against the credit bureaus. They’ve created a system with extremely poor security and which can be abused with ease. Yet it can cause significant damage to peoples lives who have no recourse.
They can also still steal your identity for other reasons. Like if they are arrested. Congrats you’ve suddenly become a convicted felon.
I thought it was called “opting out” as in no soft pulls. I don’t get any credit offers in the mail and its good for 5 years. I need to check this out an see if its the same thing or different
Thanks for posting this.
And I learned all this through a fantastic website called creditboards.com they know everything there is to know about this stuff
This is an option yes and cheaper than credit monitoring. I’ve considered it but decided not for two reasons. One, as the article states, if/when you open a new line of credit, no matter what it is, you have to get the freeze removed. Now that may sound like an easy enough thing, and I suppose it is when compared to the hassle of ID theft, but it’s still another thing you’d have to do every time you do anything with your identity, from opening a new bank account, to getting a car loan, or a new credit card, or home loan. In addition, I’ve heard, but I don’t know for sure, that a freeze can complicate a simple credit/background check, so if/when you apply for a new job, that can be complicated by a freeze. I don’t know if that’s 100% true.
Second, it seems to me if someone already has your name, SS#, DOB, and mother’s maiden name, they would probably have enough info to unfreeze your credit themselves. IOW, what more information would one need to initiate a freeze in the first place? Probably the same as to take it off.
In the end I decided it was more trouble than it was worth.
It's true but this is not a bad thing at all. We've had ours frozen for years. It was free (did it online at each service) and has not been a hassle (how many loans do you need to take out in a year?).
When I had my security clearance update, I forgot about the credit accounts being frozen. I received a call from the investigator asking if I had locked the accounts because he couldn't access them. I said I had so he asked if I would open them for a ten day window and let him know the dates so he could complete the check. I did - online and for free. Investigator confirmed that he had what he needed after a few days and the accounts re-locked.
googled “security freeze texas” & got all the info.
tx!
That part can be interesting, especially if their database has incorrect info.
My daughter (now age 33, married, two kids) has the same initials as me. When I'm presented with a series of those detailed questions there will usually be one or two asking about history related to my daughter, all of them occuring after she moved out of the house.
It seems to me that banks should be the natural point of contact for this sort of thing. Banks are in the business of giving John Doe his money, and accepting money from John Q. Public on behalf of John Doe. Which implies responsibility for respecting the identities of payers and payees both.
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