For the first time in 15+ years of applying for credit cards, I’ve finally taken the action of freezing my credit (also sometimes known as a security freeze). Let me explain why, and then I’ll talk about the actual process of doing so.
In this post:
Why you should freeze your credit
Having a good credit score is very important — it can help you pick up amazing credit cards, it can help you get a mortgage, and it can help you get approved for the lease of a car or apartment. However, nowadays there’s also quite a bit of identity theft. In some cases this might just be because you were involved in a data breach, while in other cases it might be because some important documents were stolen.
The single easiest way to protect your credit score is to freeze your credit. Essentially if you freeze your credit, no one can do a pull on your credit score, which is required to steal your identity for a credit card, etc.
Historically I haven’t frozen my credit, though. Why? Well, it seems mildly inconvenient, and I’ve been fortunate that I haven’t had any real issues with identity theft. However, as I wrote about in a separate post, I’ve had some weird things happen that point to some level of identity theft, so I figured this was the time to do so.
No matter how you slice it, freezing your credit is definitely a best practice. It’s a proactive measure you can take to avoid the mess of having your identity stolen. If you don’t do it, all your measures will simply be reactive, and could prove to be more of a pain.
Since I’ve now frozen my credit, I figured I’d share my experience with doing so. I was pleasantly surprised by how pain free the whole process was, and I’m wondering why I didn’t do it sooner (so thanks to all the OMAAT readers who encouraged me to do this!).
How you can freeze your credit
The good news is that freezing your credit is free and instant, and has no impact on your credit score (so there’s no credit inquiry to freeze your credit, for example). Furthermore, you can do this as often as you’d like.
You have to freeze your credit separately with each of the three bureaus — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. You can do this either online or by phone, so let me share the basics of how to do this with each credit bureau. You can expect that the process of freezing your credit will only take 5-10 minutes with each bureau, depending on how fast you are.
How to freeze your credit with Equifax
If you want to freeze your credit with Equifax, you can do so online at this link. Alternatively, you can call 800.685.1111, and there’s an automated system that will help you freeze your credit.
How to freeze your credit with Experian
If you want to freeze your credit with Experian, you can do so online at this link. Alternatively, you can call 888.397.3742, and there’s an automated system that will help you freeze your credit.
How to freeze your credit with TransUnion
If you want to freeze your credit with TransUnion, you can do so online at this link. Alternatively, you can call 888.909.8872, and there’s an automated system that will help you freeze your credit.
How you can unfreeze your credit
Freezing your credit is pretty straightforward, but how do you go about unfreezing your credit? The good news is that this is a straightforward process as well. You can unfreeze your credit via the same links and phone numbers as you’ll find above. Just make sure you save all your account log-in details (which can easily be done with a password manager).
Once you unfreeze your credit, that should apply immediately, and then you can always freeze your credit again whenever you want. In other words, you could unfreeze your credit, apply for a credit card, and then freeze your credit again.
If you know from which bureau a credit inquiry will be pulled, you can always just choose to unfreeze your credit with one bureau. However, if you’re not sure where your credit will be pulled from, you can just have have your credit unfrozen with all three bureaus.
Downsides to freezing your credit
Are there any downsides to freezing your credit? No, not really, aside from the obvious. The only real potential downside is the added step of having to unfreeze your credit when you want to apply for a credit card (or something else) in the future.
Aside from that simple step, there’s not any negative impact to freezing your credit.
Bottom line
For whatever reason, I hadn’t gone through the effort of freezing my credit until now. I always knew it was a “best practice,” but assumed that it would be a pain to set up, and that it wouldn’t actually be needed.
While I don’t have a reason to believe that my social security number has been compromised, I have had some weird identity theft situations lately, so I figured this was as good of a time as any to finally freeze my credit.
Fortunately I found the process to be easy, and I don’t think I’ll ever not freeze my credit again (aside from when I’m ready for a credit pull).
Where do you stand on credit freezes?
All the comments to the contrary... I had a freeze at all three credit reporting agencies, flew to a city 1,000 miles away, bought a $50k car at a new car dealer finance 100%, and didn't get so much as a text alerting me to the activity. Yes, two of the three showed a pull that day.
It’s the best thing I ever did to safeguard my identity and my credit. And as your article stated, it is easy to freeze and unfreeze. if you’re going to apply for a credit card unfreeze the day before and close it back up a day or two later.
Ben,
You lost your "private citizen" status by hosting a web page for several years now. You have raised your status to "celebrity" and are now a high profile target of fraudsters and con artist. Now is the time to place credit freezes and other security procedures on your accounts while you have the advantage.
Another item to note is that your compadre on LALF has a tendency to post pictures of his...
Ben,
You lost your "private citizen" status by hosting a web page for several years now. You have raised your status to "celebrity" and are now a high profile target of fraudsters and con artist. Now is the time to place credit freezes and other security procedures on your accounts while you have the advantage.
Another item to note is that your compadre on LALF has a tendency to post pictures of his passport and visa applications on his blog which is a big no-no. Exact spelling of a name and places of birth are the foundation of fraud. The same thing happens when AB&B wants an image of your drivers license. You just gave away very rudimentary info which can be used to compromise your credit.
My concern is the safety of this situation. You do this online with your user name and password. That could also be hacked.
It's nice that it's gotten so easy to freeze and unfreeze. Used to be a bit of a hassle, but now you can unfreeze all three bureaus in less than 10 minutes. Well worth the small extra effort for the security. Sorry someone messing with you turned you on to this, but it's probably for the best.
Freezing the three credit bureau reports is a fail safe system and keeps your identity safe even if your data falls on the “dark web” since the freeze doesn’t allow an account being opened.
The added benefit is that it also protects your SS account as well. When you setup online access to your SS account they do a “soft inquiry” to validate who you are. So, you get an added layer of protection so some low life POS can’t mess with your SS benefits.
You and many others here get the whole "credit freeze" all wrong.
It is not a fail safe system. It's a just another hurdle these hackers need to overcome.
You are your mother's maiden name away from any account, including the credit bureau's account.
Thanks to 23 and me and so many goodies on the "dark web". That's easy.
The fail safe is to redesign the whole system with an actual fail...
You and many others here get the whole "credit freeze" all wrong.
It is not a fail safe system. It's a just another hurdle these hackers need to overcome.
You are your mother's maiden name away from any account, including the credit bureau's account.
Thanks to 23 and me and so many goodies on the "dark web". That's easy.
The fail safe is to redesign the whole system with an actual fail safe.
Like I posted earlier, it's an obsolete system. Either you're smart enough to understand why or not.
I froze mine about 10 years ago after I received a letter telling me I'd been declined for a gas card. Only I hadn't applied for one. Score 800+. Very strange. No problems since.
If a card app goes into “review,” should you unfreeze your credit until finally approved?
A card app won't be approved if your credit report is frozen at the bureau the card issuer uses. You have to unfreeze it before you apply. If you don't, the issuer will either just reject your application or ask you to unfreeze. You should keep it unfrozen until you get a decision or they pull the report, whichever comes first.
We've always had freezes for both ourselves and our kids, and now that the kids are of legal age, they're handling their own freezes. One issue we've run into though -- unfreezing TransUnion has been a big pain, with the website erroring out and requiring a call to talk to a human being.
Interesting, thanks! Just as a ”fun” fact - in Sweden, their equivalent of a SSN is public knowledge and you can either look it up online within a matter of minutes, or just call the government and ask (”hi, I just want to know the full SSN, full name, full address and taxed income of individual X”). And there is also no way of freezing your credit. You’re basically screwed if someone wants to steal your identity.
When you unfreeze your credit, you can select a time for the bureau to automatically refreeze, so that you don’t have to go back again and do it yourself. That way, unfreezing/refreezing is a one step process (for each bureau).
It’s so much easier than it used to be.
If the credit bureau is compromised, everything is compromised.
This is solving the regulator's wrong problem for an obsolete system.
Having your entire life depending on a 9 digit number system invented almost a 100 years ago design to track welfare payment caused by the Great Depression.
The system you call obsolete is the envy of most of the rest of the world. Before coming to America I could only dream of having such an easy and centrally managed access to credit.. And by a long shot the best credit cards in the whole world. If anything needs to be fixed is the ease of getting a SSN, which foreigners then can use to access so easily the privilege and way of...
The system you call obsolete is the envy of most of the rest of the world. Before coming to America I could only dream of having such an easy and centrally managed access to credit.. And by a long shot the best credit cards in the whole world. If anything needs to be fixed is the ease of getting a SSN, which foreigners then can use to access so easily the privilege and way of living of Americans, while at the same time talking shit of the USA (while proudly flashing their lucrative Amex Platinums).
Well those are certainly all words.
No, foreigners do not have easy access to "the privilege and way of living of Americans".
The US has the most lucrative point system purely because - unlike in the rest of the world - merchant fees are unregulated.
Eskimo is correct about issues with a 9 digit SSN. There is no check digit so any 9-digit string should be a valid number (unlike credit card numbers which have an encoded check digit). Also 9 digits give you 999,999,999 possible SSNs, What's the population of the US? And those 9 digit strings are used for a number of there IDs -- eg EINs for employers.
And credit cards have how many digits? Wonder why they use so many:-)
**** digit strings are used for a number other IDs - ****
@BBK
Love to hear more from you once you're a victim of identity theft. Since you can't even distinguish between SSN system and credit scoring system, there is little left to explain that you would understand.
@GBOAC
I would like to add a few things.
The check digit itself is useless, it's just to detect error and easily defeated in 10 tries.
What you are looking for is check sum where the whole...
@BBK
Love to hear more from you once you're a victim of identity theft. Since you can't even distinguish between SSN system and credit scoring system, there is little left to explain that you would understand.
@GBOAC
I would like to add a few things.
The check digit itself is useless, it's just to detect error and easily defeated in 10 tries.
What you are looking for is check sum where the whole set is validated.
Like credit cards, SSN also has a very predictable system.
***This is all public information that most public is too stupid to even care***
Your first 3 digits are not random up until a little over a decade ago. Yes around Obama, years after more than 100 million customer got hacked off TJ Maxx.
The middle 2 also follows a sequence. The last 4 can be found too easy from numerous hacks.
Now rather than randoming a billion number, with a few more data, thiefs can be randoming only a dozen number.
it's an obsolete system. Either you're smart enough to understand why or not.
Pro tip: Freeze the credit reports of your children.
Their credit identity can be "stolen" too.
I didn't do it until they were teens, so I'm not sure how early you *can* do it.
I didn’t freeze my credit, but I did put on a fraud alert several years ago after receiving a credit card I didn’t apply for. The nice thing about the fraud alert is that if I apply for credit I need not do anything proactively, but the credit issuer contacts me and verifies the application before approval.
Really annoying playing phone tag with a card issuer trying to verify info on an app. I’ve even had card applications expire & fall thru the cracks with alerts. Now that I know you can pre-set a freeze, probably the better route.
Fraud alert is extra peace-of-mind. Yes there can be a bit of phone tag with applications once an alert is in place but lenders are doing due diligence verifying you in fact did apply, which is exactly what you want to occur when there's concern an unauthorized parties may be using your info.
Yes. I have mine frozen for over 20 years and never had problems getting new mortgage or credit cards.
About 17 or 18 years for me. It was a pain initially because the bureaus charged for it and did everything they possibly could to make it difficult to freeze and unfreeze. But the legistlation that followed the Equifax breech a few years ago changed that, and now it's both free and easy to freeze/unfreeze online.