Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian all offer account freezing for free. Take advantage of it! It is a great way to prevent someone from wrecking your credit
I did this when the Equifax breaches happened.
Freezing the accounts definitely had negative impacts on my credit score, despite having safe CC utilization and no debt. I saw about a 20 point dip from doing it.
Sure they claim it won’t have any effect but being safe is risky behavior to a business that relies on you being unsafe.
You should also place a security freeze on opening new bank and checking accounts in your name. Something almost nobody knows about…
Related: YSK that if someone opens an account in your name or uses your credit cards without your permission, you’re not legally obligated to pay for those fraudulent debts or transactions. You can call the lender and tell them that it’s fraud.
And spend hundreds of hours fighting the collections they send after you regardless.
I had someone open a Verizon account with my info and I only found out when it showed up on my credit report as a collections account. Every single person there tried to tell me the account didn’t exist and there was nothing they could do. I even had one fuckin rep try to get me up open a new account so they could use it to look up the other account, because apparently sounded like a complete moron. I ended up reporting it to the secretary of state and wouldn’t you know Verizon found the account for them on the first try.
SLPT: Get together with a friend and open accounts in eachothers name and use them for all your purchases. It’s basically free money.
Does it seem unethical to anyone else that Experian reports credit scores and also has a service to boost your credit score? Like “pay us or else we’ll tell people you’re poor.”
I mean, the whole idea of credit scores in general is just a scam to keep poor people poor (and more specifically - in debt), and to create work for a new kind of companies - those standing between us and our “score” (which isn’t even measured consistently, but changes from agency to agency) and who we have to provide with access to our most personal and sensitive data to access.
Why make this post if you’re not going to bother posting the links?
Experian
1-888-397-3742
Equifax
1-800-685-1111
www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services/credit-freeze/
TransUnion
(888) 909-8872
We can thank US Government for FORCING these companies to allow you to freeze your credit report. It used to be a state by state thing, else you had to pay them like $10 to freeze and unfreeze, unless you had PROOF that your identity was stolen.
Especially considering Equifax had that little “oopsy” (they already leaked all your personal info) 7 years ago, you should absolutely 100% freeze your credit report.
YES you have to unfreeze it when you’re needed to check your credit, but how often does that happen?
Honestly it’s a great excuse to turn down a pushy salesman as well. “Well I really wanna buy this car, but I have to unfreeze my credit report first and my info is at home, so I’ll be back.”
And do you REALLY need that 10th credit card for get that $10 coupon for Khols? Nah.
It’s a bit of work to set up, but once you set it up don’t forget you get a free credit report yearly from each bureau. So space them out every 4 months and then check them yearly.
Have you froze it recently though? They bury the fucking options and make it as painful as possible all while trying to sell you $20 a month monitoring services. Seriously equifax? Why would I PAY your backward, half assed company money to sell AND leak my data? What the christ!
I would like just to thank you for writing to title that it’s US-specific. I mean, it was clear by the time I finished the title, but that’s not always the case and I was really glad that you put it there.
