Credit Freeze or Fraud Alert: What's Right for Your Credit Report?

Credit freezes and fraud alerts can help protect you from identity theft. They can also help stop someone who stole your identity from continuing to misuse it. Credit freezes and fraud alerts work in different ways. Learn the differences, how to place a freeze or alert, and how long they last. Your situation will determine which one is right for you.

Is a Credit Freeze Right for You?

You don’t have to wait for your Social Security number or other information to be exposed in a data breach or misused by an identity thief to benefit from a credit freeze. Anyone can use a freeze to protect themselves against identity theft. A freeze keeps people from getting into your credit report. While a freeze is in place, nobody can open a new credit account. A freeze is free to place and lift, and it doesn’t affect your credit score. Even if you already have a credit freeze in place, you can place a fraud alert. There are three types of fraud alerts:

Initial fraud alert

An initial fraud alert tells businesses to check with you before opening a new account in your name. An initial fraud alert lasts one year. You can choose to renew it.

Extended fraud alert

Like an initial fraud alert, an extended fraud alert will make it harder for someone to open a new credit account in your name. A business must contact you before it issues new credit in your name.

The credit bureaus will also take you off their marketing lists for unsolicited credit and insurance offers for five years, unless you ask them not to. An extended fraud alert lasts seven years.

Active duty alert

As an active duty service member, placing an active duty fraud alert on your credit report will make it harder for someone to open a new credit account in your name. A business must verify your identity before it issues new credit in your name. An active duty fraud alert lasts one year. After a year, you’ll have the choice to renew it for the length of your deployment.

How to place an alert

Contact any one of the three credit bureaus —Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion. You don’t have to contact all three. The credit bureau you contact must tell the other two to place an active duty fraud alert on your credit report.

Source: ftc.gov