Friendly PSA: Consider Freezing Everything

tacpmurgtacpmurg
edited April 6 in General

I recently once again had someone try and use my stolen PII to set up an account with a random bank, and again it was blocked because I have everything already frozen. If you already have your accounts and credit cards, and dont foresee a need to keep your credit open for approvals, consider freezing everything and only unfreeze when you need to.

Its fast and easy:

https://old.reddit.com/r/IdentityTheft/comments/uvv3ij/psa_freezing_your_three_main_credit_reports_is/

https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
https://my.equifax.com/
https://www.transunion.com/
https://www.innovis.com/
https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/freeze
https://www.chexsystems.com/ (this is the bank one)
https://nctue.com/consumers/ / https://www.exchangeservicecenter.com/Freeze/ (telecoms/utilities checks)

Heck if im gonna let some random identity thief ruin the credit I worked so hard to fix.

Comments

  • Carrie_AnneCarrie_Anne

    Saving this and will decide if I want to do it. Thanks for posting @tacpmurg

  • tacpmurgtacpmurg
    edited April 6

    @Carrie_Anne No worries. If you do, make sure to keep the PINs they mail you somewhere safe. You will need them for the unlocks.

    EDIT

    I had to unlock for my mortgage application .. it took me like 30 minutes. I set the unfreeze for one week and it automatically went frozen again.

  • Carrie_AnneCarrie_Anne

    Ok thanks for this info. I’m not ready to do it right now but having the links you’ve provided will make it much easier. Meanwhile I will share this with my daughter!

  • lovingspoonfulllovingspoonfull

    I can echo the recommendation. Too many people looking to benefit from your work; and no security is perfect. Identity theft, credit theft, bank fraud etc.

    Freeze on credit is a good reasonable step to mitigate.

  • cuddlefaerycuddlefaery

    I imagine anyone going to steal money or credit from me end up going "damn, nevermind then" and moving on 😅💀 I guess that's a small benefit of having your credit ruined by predatory student loans.

    Thank you for sharing this info! It's definitely worth considering for some folks.

  • Josh8787Josh8787

    @cuddlefaery "they caught the guy who stole my ID crying in his car eating cheetos. Guy really went for it." Old joke but a good one.

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