Identity theft is big business. While more than 1.1 million reports of identity theft were received online by the Federal Trade Commission in 2022 (FTC.gov), the actual number of ID theft victims is likely much higher, with Javelin Strategy stating that 2022 saw $43 billion in financial losses affecting 40 million U.S. consumers (JavelinStrategy.com).
If your identity is ever stolen, one of the first things you’ll want to do is place a security freeze or “credit freeze” on your credit. This will restrict access to your credit report and help to prevent a bad situation from turning worse.
One of the big risks with ID theft is that thieves could use your information to apply and get approved for credit accounts. This has the potential to negatively affect your credit history and score. While such effects can be resolved, it’s definitely worth a try to prevent the headache of repairing credit damage in the first place.
This is where freezing your credit comes in. Placing a security freeze on your credit helps to prevent identity thieves from opening new credit accounts under your name. This is because your credit report will be blocked whenever potential creditors attempt to access it during the application process.
A security freeze:
To request a security freeze on your credit, you’ll need to reach out to each of the three primary U.S. credit bureaus individually: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Placing a freeze on your credit at just one of these bureaus will NOT automatically place a freeze on the others. The same rule applies if you’d like to remove a security freeze. The contact information for each of these credit bureaus is provided below.
No. You can freeze and thaw your credit whenever you like for free. Prior to 2018, the question of whether or not you had to pay for a security freeze (and the amount of the fee) depended on which U.S. state you lived in. These fees were discontinued across the country after the passage of the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act.