All states either have laws requiring the credit rating companies to freeze credit reports, where no creditor can look at it, or the credit companies offer this service voluntarily. Credit freezes are one of the most effective tools against identity thieves, but they do not guarantee that a creditor cannot see your credit score.
Identification
A credit freeze only prevents new lenders from seeing your report. Your current lenders do not lift the freeze if they use your credit report to review or collect on an account, according to Kiplinger. Also, the credit bureaus allow you to temporarily lift a freeze. This requires giving the credit bureaus advanced notice -- ranging from 15 minutes to 10 days -- and supplying the personal PIN you chose when you initiated the freeze.
Considerations
If you want to temporarily lift the credit freeze, you will have to pay a fee in all states except Indiana and South Carolina. Some states allow seniors to lift freezes for free. (ref 3)
Effective Freezes
The fees to freeze a credit report are actually triple that of the state rate, because you need to freeze reports from all three credit bureaus. Leaving reports at any bureau unfrozen means a would-be thief only needs to find a lender that accepts a credit report from the bureau(s) you left out.
Alternative to Credit Freeze
Instead of a credit freeze, you can place a fraud alert for free. This allows creditors to see your credit score, but they are supposed to ask for photo identification before processing any application. The key here is "supposed to." Lenders can ignore fraud alerts because the law does not spell out what steps a creditor must take to verify the identity of an applicant. Also, fraud alerts expire within 90 days, so you will have to keep renewing the alert unless you can prove you are a victim of identity theft.
0 comments:
Post a Comment