Credit Freeze or Security Freeze
Credit freeze is provided by 3 major credit reporting agencies to prevent credits, loans from being approved in your name without your signature. When you put a security freeze on your credit report, you will be provided a personal identification number or password. You will use this password when you try to remove the freeze from your report or give permission to temporarily release your credit report for a specific person or time.
If you are applying for new credit, you should organize and lift the freeze, either completely, or specifically for a certain creditor, a few days before actually applying for new credit.
But remember that your already existing creditors are exception to this rule and they can run your report. Collection agencies acting on behalf of your existing account can also run your report without permission.
When you put a security freeze of your report with one bureau it is not automatically shared with other bureaus. So you need to call the three credit reporting agency separately using the following phone numbers.
Equifax
1 800 685 1111
TransUnion 1 800 916 8800
Experian 1 888 397 3742
Bureaus will charge you to freeze your report if you do not have a police report. So if you are a victim of fraud you should report the fraud to your closes police station and make sure you have a copy of the police report.
How to Un-freeze:
You can use the following links to un-freeze your report or simply call the above numbers for guidance.
https://www.freeze.equifax.com
https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
https://freeze.transunion.com/sf/securityFreeze/landingPage.jsp
Please post your questions and we will reply as soon as we can.
