Whichever option you choose, you’ve taken a good first step toward protecting your identity and financial future. Again, you’ll have to contact each credit bureau to find out about their lock services. (If you make these requests by mail, the agency must place or lift the freeze within three business days.)Īnother option, fraud alerts, only require that you contact one of the three credit bureaus, which will notify the other two bureaus.Ī third option is a credit lock, which will possibly cost you, but gives you the option to instantly stop activity on your credit accounts if you think you may be about to become a victim of identity theft. When you request to lift the freeze by phone or online, the credit bureaus must take that action within one hour. Whether you ask for the freeze online or by phone, the credit bureau must put the freeze in place within one business day of the request. Credit reporting agencies may not charge a fee to place or to temporarily or permanently lift a security freeze. To place a credit freeze on your account, you’ll have to contact all three nationwide credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. I froze my credit the day after news about the Equifax breach broke, and it looks like TransUnion has since changed their site to push people away from freezing their credit in favor for their own product called TrueIdentity (like what Equifax was doing with their TrustedID Premier. A fraud alert requires businesses that check a consumer’s credit to get the consumer’s approval before opening a new account. The law also extends the duration of a fraud alert on a consumer’s credit report from 90 days to one year. Visit to request free copies of your credit reports. “The new law also allows parents to freeze for free the credit of their children who are under 16, while guardians, conservators, and those with a valid power of attorney can get a free freeze for their dependents,” noted the Federal Trade Commission in a news release. The three national credit reporting agencies Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion have extended until Decema program that lets you check your credit report at each of the agencies once a week for free. In placing a credit freeze, avoid signing up for. The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which Congress passed in May, allows consumers in states where they could be required to pay for credit freezes to avoid those fees. Pursuant to a law effective September 21, 2018, there is no charge to freeze or unfreeze your credit file. It assumes the individual who is freezing their reports is between 18 and 61 years old. Last week, though, portions of a new law signed by President Trump went into effect. This data was obtained online from the national credit bureaus-Experian, Equifax and TransUnion-in September 2017.
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