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.
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?
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