We can thank US Government for FORCING these companies to allow you to freeze your credit report. It used to be a state by state thing, else you had to pay them like $10 to freeze and unfreeze, unless you had PROOF that your identity was stolen.

Especially considering Equifax had that little "oopsy" (they already leaked all your personal info) 7 years ago, you should absolutely 100% freeze your credit report.

YES you have to unfreeze it when you're needed to check your credit, but how often does that happen?

Honestly it's a great excuse to turn down a pushy salesman as well. "Well I really wanna buy this car, but I have to unfreeze my credit report first and my info is at home, so I'll be back."

And do you REALLY need that 10th credit card for get that $10 coupon for Khols? Nah.

It's a bit of work to set up, but once you set it up don't forget you get a free credit report yearly from each bureau. So space them out every 4 months and then check them yearly.

Related: YSK that if someone opens an account in your name or uses your credit cards without your permission, you're not legally obligated to pay for those fraudulent debts or transactions. You can call the lender and tell them that it's fraud.

Does it seem unethical to anyone else that Experian reports credit scores and also has a service to boost your credit score? Like "pay us or else we'll tell people you're poor."

I would like just to thank you for writing to title that it's US-specific. I mean, it was clear by the time I finished the title, but that's not always the case and I was really glad that you put it there.

Why make this post if you're not going to bother posting the links?

Experian

1-888-397-3742

www.experian.com/freeze

Equifax

1-800-685-1111

www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services/credit-freeze/

TransUnion

(888) 909-8872

www.transunion.com/credit-freeze

You should also place a security freeze on opening new bank and checking accounts in your name. Something almost nobody knows about..

https://www.chexsystems.com/security-freeze/place-freeze

I did this when the Equifax breaches happened.

Freezing the accounts definitely had negative impacts on my credit score, despite having safe CC utilization and no debt. I saw about a 20 point dip from doing it.

Sure they claim it won't have any effect but being safe is risky behavior to a business that relies on you being unsafe.

One other thing to note, as a parent with young kids, you can do this for them as well. It's a much larger headache as it can't be done online but a small headache in comparison to trying to unravel credit abuse/identity theft when they turn 18.

Also make sure you register on the social security administration website and IRS...or someone else will do it for you.

Also, note on the SSA website, they will require you to login with 2FA email and will send you a slow ass code that takes 2-10i items to arrive. The rub is, if you copy the code with any standard method and paste it into their box, it copies an extra space character and pastes it, invisibly into the 2FA code box, which then fails. Took me a few weeks to work this out...they have a link to login support from the same page...wonder why they get issues?!? You have to type it in manually and only if you know this issue exists.

I opened a ticket with their IT for the good of the world....fuck the contractor who made that webpage.