| Credit freezes,
which are not yet available in every state,
prevent creditors and other credit bureaus from accessing your credit reports
without your permission, unless you are under legal investigation or the creditors
requesting your file already do business with you.
More protective than a fraud alert, some find credit freezes
to be a godsend, but others loathe the inconvenience. For a taste of what it's
like to place, live with and lift a credit freeze, consider these readers' experiences.
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| Credit freezes: | |
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Placing freeze
is a simple process
I froze my credit file and that of my spouse, as permitted
by North Carolina's law. Of the six letters sent to
the three credit reporting agencies asking them to freeze
the accounts belonging to my wife and myself, five went
into effect within two weeks, as confirmed by letters
from the credit-reporting agencies. For some reason,
presumably a misplaced letter, one credit bureau did
not confirm to me that they had frozen access to my
account. A follow-up letter after a month fixed the
problem. I was satisfied with the response by all three
credit agencies. The process of placing the freezes
was relatively painless.
-- Charles PIN
doesn't make unfreezing easy
My experience with lifting a credit
freeze was one of total frustration -- especially with one of the bureaus. Even
with the PIN they provided, I was required to provide identification. So I sent
them copies of my driver's license and they sent back form letters that said:
"You need to provide identification." Eventually, they specified that
I needed to provide a copy of my Social Security card. They had never requested
that in previous communication. Why bother with a PIN, if
you have to prove who you are anyway? Trying to talk to a "live" person
on the phone is next to impossible with these three credit bureaus.
--
Frank
My husband and I have credit freezes.
I must say, to remove the freeze temporarily is easy
with two of the credit bureaus. However, dealing with
the people at the other agency is a complete pain. I
ask them time and again why they make it so difficult
to unfreeze an account when the access code is given.
You can't convince them that it is a problem with their
system as they want to argue. I spent four weeks trying
to unfreeze my credit report with them while trying
to refinance my house. In the end, though they claimed
that they had unfrozen my report, my loan broker still
could not view my credit report file.
-- Disgusted Happy
with the freeze, frustrated with timely removal
I have a credit freeze
on all my accounts here in California. I am happy to have it and will continue
to use it. But, I've noticed that the credit agencies and the credit granters
don't like it and have seemingly gone out of their way to make it difficult to
keep a credit freeze. For example, each agency has a different way to unfreeze
an account. So when a creditor wanted to check my credit I asked them which credit
report they wanted unfrozen. They said they wanted all three, so I told them forget
it. It wasn't worth the hassle -- I would do without the credit line extension.
-- JIMC | 
