Credit freeze

[calnomore]

Hello,
I was reading a post titled "Three hard inquiries on my credit report?!" and a lot of the replies mentioned that our credit should be frozen.
Someone mentioned 3 or 4 agencies.
Can someone give some guidance on how to do this?

Hopefully it can be done online at each agency.

Thanks!

 

[audreyh1]

Lots of articles covering this topic. Here is one: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/how-to-freeze-credit

 

[Jerry1]

Thanks. I was wondered the same thing as the OP. I have an Equifax account, but I wondered how to get all agencies to freeze.

 

[Sunset]

Go to each agency and request a freeze.

Keep a record of each agency PIN number they give you and security questions as logins etc. As you will need it to temporairly un-freeze an account for a new CC or loan.

 

[Jerry1]

Go to each agency and request a freeze.

Keep a record of each agency PIN number they give you and security questions as logins etc. As you will need it to temporairly un-freeze an account for a new CC or loan.

Yeah, I was hoping there was a single clearing house where I could freeze and unfreeze my credit at all agencies.

Note - The article that was posted above by audrey1 lists two agencies beyond the big three. Would you contact all 5 of them?

 

[audreyh1]

Yeah, I was hoping there was a single clearing house where I could freeze and unfreeze my credit at all agencies.

Note - The article that was posted above by audrey1 lists two agencies beyond the big three. Would you contact all 5 of them?

We did the first 4 of them and probably should do the 5th.

I had never heard of the 5th one, but having trouble with a risky dink rewards credit card and the second time they used that last one and were informed that our credit was frozen! So it happened already.

 

[braumeister]

There is still another one, ChexSystems, and I froze that also some years ago along with the others.

 

[RobbieB]

I just did the big three back when the "big hack" occurred.

But it seems to be working. I was denied at B of A (over 40 year customer) and also Home Depot ($50 off if you apply for the HD card), the checker was a sweetheart though, she gave me $25 off even though it bounced -

 

[Sunset]

Yeah, I was hoping there was a single clearing house where I could freeze and unfreeze my credit at all agencies.

Note - The article that was posted above by audrey1 lists two agencies beyond the big three. Would you contact all 5 of them?

I did 4.
The big 3 plus innovis

 

[Sunset]

Interestingly, when I switched to Comcast for internet from Wow last week, I had no issues even though I have my freezes.

Could be because I was a customer 2 years ago , or because I didn't freeze: National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange .

 

[EastWest Gal]

So the 5 are:

Equifax
Transunion
Experion
Innovis
Chexsystems

I never heard of the last two until about 5 minutes ago, reading this thread.

Modern life is way too complicated.

 

[calnomore]

So the 5 are:

Equifax
Transunion
Experion
Innovis
Chexsystems

I never heard of the last two until about 5 minutes ago, reading this thread.

Modern life is way too complicated.

I think there are 6 now.
NCTUE was in the original 5. You're right. Way too complicated

 

[donheff]

I froze the big "four" years ago. Chexsystems is a new one. When I have temporarily lifted the freeze I have had to do Equifax, Transunion, and Experion but not Innovis. No one seems to be checking that one.

Edit: I froze Chexsystems but I'm not sure it matters. It looks like they deal with closed and frozen bank accounts, not consumer creditworthiness.

 

[sengsational]

Plenty of resources to help through freeze/thaw. If you are starting from scratch, you might search "Clark Howard Freeze Thaw Guide". Do yourself a favor and take detailed notes that contain the PIN, the URLs, what menu tree you had to traverse to finally do the work, the and all that. They don't make it easy, especially Equifax (the company that gave data to the hackers). They have continually made it impossible for me to thaw online, making me call, which takes a long time. Thankfully, it's very rare that I need a thaw.

 

[pacergal]

We froze our credit years ago, but just the top 3.
Usually no problem to temporarily unfreeze, either on line or call (but it does take a long time on the phone!) for 24 hours or what ever is needed. We have done that twice.

No one has ever mentioned needing anything other than:
Equifax
Transunion
Experion

Are the others necessary? What are they?

 

[TripleLindy]

We froze our credit years ago, but just the top 3.
Usually no problem to temporarily unfreeze, either on line or call (but it does take a long time on the phone!) for 24 hours or what ever is needed. We have done that twice.

No one has ever mentioned needing anything other than:
Equifax
Transunion
Experion

Are the others necessary? What are they?

I’ve only frozen the 3 you mentioned above. Never had any issues with thawing and re-freezing online for brief periods to allow for things like a credit card app. We still have a PIN from 1 of the services, but they don’t require it any longer.

 

[calnomore]

Clark Howard recommends free credit monitoring with something like credit karma.
Anybody using it?

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

There is another service that has been around since the mid 80s called "The Work Number". It is primarily used by employers to verify/screen employee histories including income. It is an Equifax company and it has a lot of data on a lot of people. It looks like they also have property information and a few other things.

It's a pain to get your own report, but I was surprised that it included information from jobs I had back in HIGH SCHOOL..including job title, gross/net pay, withholdings...etc. Although I am not looking for j*b anytime (hopefully never) soon, but I still froze that report as best as I could.

There are probably 100+ other databases out there we aren't aware of. Consider "The Work Number"...it's been around for almost 40 YEARS but I would guess few people have ever heard of it.

Oh yeah...one more I just thought about. Lexis Nexis is another information clearing house. I ran a report (and froze) a few years ago when doing an application for the bar exam. This report also had a plethora of information in it.

 

[calnomore]

I thought I'd update my journey trying to freeze our credit. This is taking too much time and effort setting up online accounts. We will settle for the big three so six online accounts total.
I've spent about 3 hours so far. I'm half way there. Lots of different issues.


Equifax is done. No luck setting up the accounts online so we had to call them. For each account we had to open a link on the phone and take pictures of the front and back of our drivers license and a selfie.


TransUnoin is 50% done. I was able to do mine online but wife's is another story. We tried to set it up online but it states that she already has one. We've called several times and talked with different people but they tell us there isn't and to try again.



Experian is a total flop. I did set mine up online yesterday and it worked. I tried today and now it states that I don't have an account. No luck at all online for wife's. No human's to talk to.



It is my goal to get this done in 2023. Thanks for reading.



Should it really be this difficult.

 

[sengsational]

^ 2023, huh? That's going to be a stretch

 

[calnomore]

^ 2023, huh? That's going to be a stretch

You might be right. It's probably easier for someone to steal your identity than for you to freeze you own credit.

 

[COcheesehead]

Clark Howard recommends free credit monitoring with something like credit karma.
Anybody using it?

Yep

 

[calnomore]

I thought I'd update my journey trying to freeze our credit. This is taking too much time and effort setting up online accounts. We will settle for the big three so six online accounts total.
I've spent about 4 hours so far. I'm 2/3 of the way there. Lots of different issues.


Equifax is done. No luck setting up the accounts online so we had to call them. For each account we had to open a link on the phone and take pictures of the front and back of our drivers license and a selfie. At first we thought "you've got to be kidding" but this was actually the best process.


TransUnoin is done. After two more calls wife's id done.



Experian is a TOTAL FLOP. I did set mine up online yesterday and it worked. I tried today and now it states that I don't have an account. No luck at all online for wife's. No human's to talk to.

Finally got to talk to someone. She didn't know what was wrong with mine and couldn't help at all.
She asked us questions to verify our identity and I passed (only 4 easy questions) but the wife missed one question (12 different questions) and failed. I'm not sure if anyone would know the answers. When was our house built and if we ever had a vehicle with this tag number. The agent gave us a number and said it was a direct line to a human but she lied. Same number that takes you on a phone journey.
So right now my credit is frozen at Experian but I can't unfreeze it because I can't access my online account and I don't have a PIN. Yea!
For such an important agency someone should require them to have humans to help you.

It is still my goal to get this done in 2023. Thanks for reading.

Should it really be this difficult.

 

[athena53]

Clark Howard recommends free credit monitoring with something like credit karma.
Anybody using it?

I try to remember to use annualcreditreport.com 3 times a year- once for each of the major bureaus- but haven't done it lately. Maybe today! They're free once a year but you have to be careful not t click on links that offer their paid monitoring services.

My Costco Citibank card also shows my current FICO score on line. I figure that as long as it's stable (or changes for reasons that I expect such as a very large purchase), I'm good.

 

[calnomore]

Another update.
Kept trying today Experian and finally got to talk with another human. She was no help so I persuaded her to let me talk with a supervisor. She helped a little. At least I could understand her.

She can see my account but can't figure out why I can't log in so she's sending the issue to technical. She did give me a freeze PIN.

She was no help with my wife's. That's going to technical as well.

At this point our credit is frozen and we have PIN's so we'll just have to call if we want to unfreeze it. We're throwing in the towel on the online accounts.


So sad!