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Old 01-14-2014, 11:53 AM   #21
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One more here who has frozen their credit for the $10(x3) fee.

This fall I had to unfreeze when I tried to use healthcare.gov. I used the opportunity to get a new Visa card from BofA that has no annual fee, simple cash back, a chip and no foreign transaction fees.

Another benefit is that I don't get credit card offers in the mail any more.

Aside. We just got back from a two week west coast road trip (6066 miles!) and AmEx called us asking if we had made a series of fuel purchases across Arizona and New Mexico. Why yes we did. But it was good to have them ask...
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Old 01-14-2014, 02:43 PM   #22
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Originally Posted by donheff View Post
Walt - from your experience perspective do you see benefits or drawbacks to freezing credit (for old retired folks who don't need new credit lines). I froze my credit at the three bureaus when I ERd. I unfroze it briefly when I wanted a CC with 50K miles. It was a bit of a hassle but seems sensible to avoid the worst of identity theft. If I still needed it open I would take advantage of Target's one year monitoring offer.
Other than the hassle factor I see no downside to freezing one's credit. If we get hit with it I won't bother to spend hours on the phone with "customer non-service". I'll just write letters - far easier and less time-consuming.

And if the time delay causes the merchants to lose more, that's their problem for being so eager to make a sale they don't take precautions. It's their money, not mine.
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Old 01-14-2014, 05:38 PM   #23
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Consumer reports wrote about these services
ID Theft | Hype Debunked - Consumer Reports
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Old 01-14-2014, 05:54 PM   #24
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Freezing and thawing one's credit bureau accounts is a very minor hassle compared to untangling the mess that happens if some criminal sets up accounts in your name.
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Old 01-14-2014, 06:05 PM   #25
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Has anyone with a credit freeze placed on their account at the Credit Bureaus have any trouble getting their free annual credit report? I had a freeze on my accounts some yrs back due to a big hack job at a place I was affiliated with. Later when I went for my annual report they said I couldn't get it with the freeze on!

I have been freezeless until now and am considering re-freezing but don't know how they are handling the annual report thing.
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Old 01-14-2014, 10:45 PM   #26
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At the request of my better half, I signed up with life lock. They did call us very promptly when my wife opened a new charge account at the Gap (or one of those type stores). So I would say so far so good.

I was pleasantly surprised by my bank the other night. We live in Oklahoma, and have our checking, as well as our daughters checking at this bank. The bank called and asked if our daughter (who lives in Fla.) had used her debit card in Virginia for gas. We checked with her quickly, then told them no, and they froze the card. There was one other charge near the same location for thirty dollars that the bank said would get credited back to her account. I thought it was great service for our local bank.
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Old 01-15-2014, 06:15 AM   #27
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I do check my credit reports, but they are free only once a year, so checking them often can get expensive. That's why I'm interested in a service that might monitor any activity for me.

Like other memebers have mentioned, this will not prevent identity theft since you'll only know when the theft has already occured. An alternative way to check your reports is instead of checking all your reports once a year, you can check one at a time every 4 months.
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Old 01-15-2014, 06:57 AM   #28
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It is beyond me why credit reporting agencies are not required to permit people to register for email alerts when credit request are made - both simple requests for ratings and/or requests to open new credit lines.
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Old 01-17-2014, 03:37 PM   #29
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I don't have an account with them. Never purchased anything from Target.com ever. I'll just have to wait until it shows up. That's why I'm thinking this is related to the hacking since my last purchase was in store Dec 16.

EDIT: Maybe I won a contest from them, maybe a gift card? I did enter a Target contest over the holidays. That's the only other thing I can think of..something positive would be nice.
My package finally arrived today. It had nothing to do w/the hack problem. I won a pair of Denizen (Levi brand) jeans from the Denizen facebook page. Instead of sending them from their own shop, they ordered them from Target.com and had them process it.
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Old 01-17-2014, 04:11 PM   #30
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I have a 1 year 'free' subscription to Protect My ID which appears to be offered by Experian. It was offered by my former employer which happens to be the federal government. Evidently there was an incident where thousands of employee and former employee identification was stolen. Lucky me! It appears that there has been no problem as of yet since the incident was last year somewhere around April or May. Unfortunately very little info is ever given to the potential victims so we really don't know how it happened.

The monitoring service did notify me recently when I joined PenFed CU and they pulled my credit report. So I guess the service does work at least for credit report activity.
I too have a one year free subscription to Experian credit monitoring courtesy of my credit card company. I get notified every month when I pay off a credit card or if I make a very large purchase. Usually several days after the fact.

I too opened a PenFed account about 2 weeks ago. Nothing yet from Experian.
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Old 01-17-2014, 06:16 PM   #31
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Holy Paranoia Batman!


Fear Sells....
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Old 01-18-2014, 07:53 AM   #32
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Is the $10 fee to freeze credit reports something new? I froze my three about a year or two ago and IIRC it didn't cost me anything. I unfroze it once to get a card with a $100 rebate on 4 tires, no cost no hassle.
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Old 01-18-2014, 09:08 AM   #33
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I got another 'love note' in my e-mail a couple days ago. This time from Target telling me my information may have been stolen. Over a year ago I ordered online so the data breech is way way bigger than what gets reported in the news. Also another offer of a free year of monitoring. Well I am already in the middle of my free year from my former employer.
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Old 01-18-2014, 01:22 PM   #34
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Don't you have to give your SS number to the credit report company to see your credit report? Who are these credit report companies? Who monitors them? How do they protect our personal info? After a security problem, I was offered a 1-year free credit report monitoring. But, to get that service, I had to give my SS number to some unknown company. Just 'cause they do credit reports doesn't mean the company isn't run by some teenager in Bulgaria.
The credit report companies already have your SS#, and entering your SS# along with answering 2 or 3 questions is validating your identity. I recently signed up with the free 1 year ID protection offered by Target and the link took me to the Experion site where I had to enter SS#, give the maiden name of my mother and answer 2 multiple choice questions to do with streets I've lived on and companies I've had loans from.

I put a credit freeze through the 3 agencies a couple of years ago but was intrigued at the ID protection offer.
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Old 01-18-2014, 01:43 PM   #35
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My package finally arrived today. It had nothing to do w/the hack problem. I won a pair of Denizen (Levi brand) jeans from the Denizen facebook page. Instead of sending them from their own shop, they ordered them from Target.com and had them process it.
A happy ending.
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