Credit Bureaus to Offer Credit Freezes to Customers Nationwide
Tip It!This is certainly good news to anyone out there that is intent on protecting themselves from identity theft and/or credit fraud:
“Major credit bureaus Experian and Equifax on Thursday joined TransUnion and said they will, this year, let people in all 50 states freeze their credit histories…
The decision by all three bureaus to offer national freezes will let consumers lock down their credit histories — especially if they are victims of identity theft. Until now, a patchwork of laws in 39 states allowed consumers, to varying degrees, to protect themselves…
A credit freeze bars the bureaus from issuing your credit history, the summary of loans and payments that forms the basis of your credit score. Because few lenders will issue credit without first seeing a credit score, freezing your information means identity thieves can’t use stolen Social Security numbers to fraudulently open accounts.”
The bad news is that two of the three bureaus (TransUnion and Equifax) will charge $10 a pop to lock and unlock your credit history. They claim that they’re simply trying to cover costs, but Experian has seen fit to offer this service for free. Given that the entire business model of these companies if based on collecting and distributing our personal information, I’m hardly sympathetic to their pleas to “cover their costs” while doing so.
Nonetheless, this is a good option. And if states pass laws mandating lower (or no) fees, the credit bureaus will be forced to comply.
[Source: USA Today]
Published on October 5th, 2007 - 3 Comments
Filed under: Credit Cards, Identity Theft
About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!
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October 5th, 2007 at 10:39 am
This is great news; I’ll have to write to my representatives to make sure that Maine leads the way in making sure there are no fees for this.
October 5th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I’ll stick with using my state’s law. I can lockdown/freeze all three; total cost: $0.
October 6th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Very nice, wiseman! I should check out my state’s laws on this. It’d be well-worth doing if it’s free. It it costs money to put on and take off, I’ll have to think about it and figure out if anything was coming up which might require a credit check.
Exciting news!