Can your identity be stolen if your credit is frozen?

A credit freeze is one of the most efficient methods of protecting oneself from identity theft and opening up fake accounts on your credit. However, it will not make you immune to all types of identity thefts but offers an added layer of protection. As mentioned in the introduction, this article will reveal information about the specific risks and threats that are covered once you freeze your credit.

What a Credit Freeze Does?

A credit freeze is also referred to as a security freeze whereby your credit report is limited thus nobody can open a credit account. The freeze prevents potential creditors and lenders from accessing your credit report or using it to extend credit to you when you file with the three credit bureaus namely: Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union. This makes it very hard for identity thieves to sign up accounts in your name and take advantage of your credit status.

Here are some of the core protections a credit freeze provides:

• Prevents a lender from accessing the credit report or credit score – With a freeze in place, the credit reports and credit scores are off limits to lenders. This helps to stop identity thieves from making credit card applications, loans, mortgages, and the like using your identity.
• Prevents current accounts being raised – A freeze protects your current accounts from raising your credit limit or passing on balance transfers to other accounts. This means it minimizes the risk of exposure in the event an account is hacked.
• Hinders prescreened credit card as well as loan offers – There is the ability to disallow prescreened credit card or loan offers by freezing your name. These pre-approved offers may be used in identity fraud.
• Can prevent some forms of medical identity theft – Medical identity theft usually involves opening fresh accounts using fake personal information. A credit freeze prevents that route for medical scams.

In conclusion, a security freeze jams the credit scheme of identity theft. It simply prevents the creation of new accounts while restricting the actions of fraudsters with your accounts. Credit reports and scores are still a mystery, so no new credit accounts are being established.

Seven important things that a credit freeze will not shield you from:

As much as it is very useful, credit freeze has its drawbacks and you need to know that there are ways in which you can still be a victim of identity theft even when your credit is frozen.

Here are some threats a security freeze does NOT protect against:

• Current account break-ins and hijackings – Freeze only prevents the creation of new accounts. It does not protect passwords of accounts and account takeovers from phishing attacks if the account has already been compromised.
• Government identity fraud – The identity documents of states and Federal such as drivers, Social Security numbers, and passports included.
• Medical identity theft – Despite its benefits to minimize risks, relentless con artists can receive medical care using stolen patient information. At least, the freeze only prevents the opening of medical credit accounts.
• Criminal Identity Theft - A person arrested and fingerprinted can have his criminal record associated with your details.
• Synthetic identity theft- This is a highly professional type of fraud in which identity manufacturing is created from scratch and then used to open accounts where the identity data used is part fake, part stolen.

In most instances, the criminals cannot open other fake accounts in a Freeze credit victim's name. However, they can cause harm by gaining access to accounts, embezzling government IDs, or employing medical/marijuana/criminal impersonations. A credit freeze should therefore be one component of a preparedness for identity theft.

It is also important to continually monitor when foods are frozen, as part of the process that should be undertaken even after foods are stored in refrigerators.

In other words, to be protected fully one has to continue with credit monitoring and the monitoring of the existing accounts while at the same time freezing.

Here is why monitoring remains critically important:

• Any bureau error unlocking reports- Even when reporting mistakes, creditors might get unlock access to credit bureaus. This way you can notice any strange activities that may have been initiated by an unauthorized user.
• Check for the non-credit identity theft hints – New accounts will not be there but other changes like address or medical info requests are there. Supervising signals these options of broader ID theft.
• Identify ongoing account compromises – Freezes prevent further account creation and activity yet cannot address existing perils such as drained account balances. Monitoring helps to identify charges from compromised accounts as soon as it is possible.
• Main early synthetic ID threats- Experienced identity thefts mix genuine stolen details such as SSNs with fake details to create new accounts. This is where the early warning comes in handy as it can identify the use of your information.
• Continue to qualify for credit monitoring reimbursement – This comes in handy in case the victim falls prey to identity theft, he or she will need to demonstrate the efforts he or she undertook to prevent it.
• To reduce the likelihood of identity crime exposure as low as possible, one needs to use a credit freeze together with credit monitoring, the scanning of the dark web, and the review of the account activity.

Who Is Still Able to Check a Cooled Credit

However, as we have seen, credit freezing is very effective in protecting individual credit reports from unauthorized access; nevertheless, some people can still be able to access your credit reports even when they are frozen.

Here are some of the core exceptions that still have access:

• Creditors with existing accounts - Current creditors, lenders, insurers, utility companies, and any other business with whom you have an existing account can however pull your credit report whenever they are reviewing your existing accounts.
• Government agencies – for example, investigators, child support enforcement agencies, and the IRS have the right to receive the credit reports of the consumers, although, the restrictions of the FCRA apply to this class of consumers in cases where the credit bureau is requested to provide the credit report of the consumer, the agency must follow stringent procedures of identifying the consumer and the request for the credit report must be in line with the law.
• Yourself – You are always free to access reports compiled by the bureaus concerning yourself and can verify this by requesting the reports. Some websites used for credit monitoring might be, for example, blocked though.
• Court Judgment – Your credit report may be unlocked by a court judgment made by creditors, though credit reference agencies usually notify you about this.
• Credit records of minors – Even for children below the age of sixteen who have inactive credit, there are limited constraints placed on the sort of users who can access the report.
• Any third party that you authorize to request your report – There are situations when you need to allow the credit bureau to share your credit file with a third party, and you give the bureau written consent to do it.

Even if locked down, this rule of third-party access exceptions should be kept in mind. You may still be asked for your credit data by courts, government bodies, or joint account holders – although there are stronger ID conditions here.

A credit freeze can help protect against identity theft, but it is important to know how long a credit freeze will take to thaw.

When you decide that you require credit once more – like applying for a mortgage or car financing – you need to unfreeze or thaw it. This brings back the availability of your reports to full to permit the applications.

The thaw process timeline is as follows:

• Online/app removal takes 1 hour – if you use the credit bureau website or mobile application, you can quickly thaw.
• Telephone removal lasts for 15 minutes – It is because when the consumer contacts the bureaus through its toll-free line, it only takes a phone verification.
• Postal mail removal takes 3 days – Writing a letter to the postmaster and sending it by post takes time, and there is always the time it takes to reach the postmaster and the time taken to reach the recipient.

The fastest thaw methods are via the bureau's website dashboard or mobile app, and again this is only a temporary thawing of the account. This speed makes it relatively easy to make the appropriate strategic freezes and thaws of your credit file when, in fact, you need to apply for credit again.

Freezing credit is relatively cheaper compared to other methods of credit protection since it may take some cash to secure your credit file.

The good news is that freezing your credit is now free, which has been made possible by alterations to federal laws.

Here is what it costs to freeze your credit at all three major bureaus:

• No freeze/thaw fees – New laws enacted at the federal level in 2018 require that credit freezes and temporary lifts thereof cost nothing.
• $0 replacement PIN Fees – This also means that there will be no charges for the replacement PINS in case you lose your unique PIN code that unlocks reports.
• $0 temporary lift fees – 7-day or 30-day temporary freezes are free.

• $0 associate freeze fees – Fee has been done away with in freezing of reports of minors or incapacitated relatives.

Then again, you can safely freeze your credit reports at all the credit bureaus and this will not attract any charges. The same applies when one is required to unlock or thaw his or her credit files once more.

Do Credit Freezes Expire

One characteristic of credit freezes is that you have to actively request them, and they don’t have a timeframe after which they are lifted on their own. Once you have implemented a freeze it remains active permanently until you decide to defrost or revoke it partially or wholly.

This indefinite freeze duration is important for identity theft prevention for two main reasons:

• No expiry on your freeze – Unlike other credit freeze options that automatically expire after a certain period, the freeze you maintain on your reports will only be opened by identity thieves if you opt to do so in the future.
• Precludes timely password expiry - It is impossible to forget the renewal dates of freezes since they do not have such, so it is easy to forget to renew the passwords and leave the reports open to anyone.

Your freeze stays in effect at all times and we will only release it when you use the credit bureau-verified method of requesting a thaw. This permits full control of when your report becomes accessible once more.

Credit Bureau Contact Details

To place a credit freeze (aka security freeze), you need to contact each of the three major credit bureaus:

• Equifax - Website: Equifax personal credit report services Equifax credit report services Website: www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services Phone number: 1 800 685 1111
• Experian - Website: Web: www.experian.com/freeze Phone: 1 888 397 3742
• TransUnion - Website: Visit TransUnion’s website at TransUnion.com/credit-freeze, or call their automated line at 888-909-8872.

You may decide to freeze your credit report with one, two, or all three credit bureaus depending on the level of ID theft you consider to be dangerous to you.

Key Takeaways

The only method that I found that provides very effective identity theft protection for new account fraud in your name is credit freezing. It is not perfect but it does erect a very strong “credit report shield” against many types of Identity crime.

When combined with careful credit report checking, dark web monitoring, and regular control of existing accounts, freezing limits vulnerability in all areas of identity theft.

Since now, it is fast, effortless, and free to freeze one’s credit, it is worth incorporating into one’s stock of identity theft prevention measures. The idea in credit is lock is a preventive measure against identity crimes in the future rather than just solving current issues.

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