I want to take a couple of minutes today to talk to you about something that I think you need to hear about. It’s not very well known. It has something to do with identity theft and odds are that the statistics hold out, you could become a victim of ID theft.
One consumer group says, that approximately 27,000 American every day fall victim to someone stealing their identity. Most options available for someone who has become a victim has only been a fraud alert where you call up the credit bureaus. You let them know that you become a victim of identity theft then they put an alert on your files so that if any new account they tried to be open in your name, your immediately called, usually called but immediately notified so that they are sure that you are in fact the person initiating a new opening of a new credit situation.
It’s usually good for only 90 days, you tend you get a seven year one if you have a police report that you file, and we really kind of recommend that anytime you are fall right to identify theft, you do notify the local police and get a police report issue.
Fraud alert notifies lenders to verify your identity but here’s where it falls apart where it’s not very helpful for you. A fraud alert will only let lenders know that you’ve been a victim so that they will notify you. But lenders or would be lenders can still access your credit report.
So if you’re still battling fraudulent accounts, your potential lender’s going to see this, so you’re only as protected as a lender or an issuer, allows you to be so to speak because if they don’t contact you and believe me, they don’t always do it in there and still open up new accounts. You could be a fall victim again and again. That’s why I want you to know about credit freezes because credit freezes are far more effective.
In a credit freeze, it bars lenders and anybody else from even getting a look at your credit report. Now, I don’t know about your lenders but I don’t know of many lenders that we’d ever, ever lend to anyone without getting a look at their credit report first. So it effectively shuts down the possibility on going fraudulent credit being issued in your name.
The bad news is, it’s only been a handful of states that allow consumers to initiate credit freezes. More states are investigating the possible legislating of credit freezes but it’s not a done deal, so what I was going to tell you today was to lobby your state representative. So if your state is not one of the, the handful, the currently have credit freezes available such as California.
However, there is some good news to share with you. Beginning on the 15th of October, TransUnion, one of the three major credit bureaus, has announced that they will allow people to freeze their credit, whether your state says you may or not.
If you have become a victim of identity fraud, it will be free for you. If you are not a victim but you fear becoming a victim of it, you may freeze your credit report for a mere $10 charge and then if you need to go borrow money for a car or a new home or what have you, you can then unfreeze it for the duration of the transaction for an additional $10.
Now, I know there are critics that say that credit freezes keep you from caring about great deals. You know something, with Americans up to their eyeballs in debt, maybe it’s a good thing if lenders can’t get a look at your credit to let you know about some upcoming good deal to borrow money.
Credit freeze, just learn more about it. Visit TransUnion online and hopefully, the other two credit bureaus Equifax and TRW will be following soon in the near future.
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