Freeze Your Credit

What To Do?

Freeze your credit at the 4 credit bureaus and check your credit rating annually at each.

Why Freeze Your Credit?

Freezing your credit makes it very hard for cybercriminals to steal your identity.

Scammers want to take your identity and use your credit.  

If your personal information is stolen, thieves can use your personal information to make loans or set up new credit cards in your name at their address. You won’t receive bills, so your first clue that something is a problem will likely be a collection agency hounding for unpaid bills or delinquent charges that you didn’t make. You will likely think these are the previously described scam cold calls, but sadly they will not be! 

Identity theft, described in Wikipedia, is “the theft of personally identifying information, generally including a person’s name, date of birth, social security number, driver’s license number, bank account or credit card numbers… or any other information that can be used to access a person’s financial resources.” If the thief is successful, our worst fears are then realized and we may have a multiple months-long journey to reverse the results. 

With the Equifax and other breaches, it becomes imperative to take steps to protect your identity, especially when it touches your financial resources. 

How to Freeze Your Credit?

Equifax – go to www.equifax.com, scroll down and click on Place or Manage a Freeze. then follow the instructions.

Experian – go to www.experian.com, scroll down and click on Security Freeze, then follow instructions.  

TransUnion – go to www.transunion.com, click on Resources, click on Credit Freeze and follow instructions.

Innovis™ - go to www.innovis.com, scroll down and click on Security Freeze, then follow instructions.  

Each of these companies, to varying degrees, try to upsell you to pay for increased “protection.” I strongly recommend starting with a free freeze!  Once you have completed the freeze process at each of these credit bureaus, it should prevent a thief from making a loan or opening a credit card without your knowledge.  All credit freezes are free thanks to Federal law.  You can selectively unfreeze for new credit needs from new creditors; then refreeze when their needs are satisfied. As more people are doing this, the credit bureaus now allow specification of an unfrozen time period, which when expired, your file is automatically refrozen. A freeze doesn’t impact prior and current creditors. 

If needed, freeze at the National Consumer Telecommunications and Utilities Exchange which is used by telecommunication companies to determine customer credit (www.nctue.com).  It too offers a freeze via a telephone call to 866-349-5355.

Check Your Credit At Least Annually.

You are entitled to receive a free copy of your credit report at least once every 12 months through AnnualCreditReport.com from each of the 4 major credit bureaus – Equifax™, Transunion®, Experian™ and InnovisTM.  Take advantage of this to determine your status every four months during the year.   

Further Reading

CyberGuardian: a SecureTheVillage Guide for Residents is available on Amazon. 

A complete Security Checklist is available : https://www.nerdsiview.com/security-checklist-2/ .