Made quick, easy, and simple!
Maine Security Credit Freeze
Made quick, easy, and simple!
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"If you activate a security freeze, an identity thief cannot take out new credit in your name, even if the thief has your Social Security number or other personal information, because creditors cannot access your credit report." (N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper)
Experian - 888-397-3742 - www.experian.com/tempfreezeremoval
Equifax - 888-298-0045 - not available online
*Compare phone numbers to instructions provided by CRAs. Obviously, use those.
Your prospective employer or bank may tell you who they use for credit checks. If not, you may need to do a lift on all three.
Contact the CRA, provide your pin number and standard personal information, and ask for a TEMPORARY GLOBAL LIFT 30 DAYS. Payment is $10 if your not an ID theft victim.
You can do a lift up to 30 days and apply for credit or a job for a whole month, while knowing that the freeze will be automatically reinstated after your planned credit transactions. The law says it takes up to 3 days. From my experience, the lift started immediately within 1 day or 15 minutes with each CRA. It is as simple as calling up the CRA, lifting the freeze, and then applying for credit. Don't bother just lifting for a specific party, instead tighten the global lift up a bit.
Original legislation can be found with this link.
Senator Lynn Bromley on Identity Theft READ this first before placing a freeze.
California - Steps to place a security freeze
Steps to place a file freeze on your credit report.
Trans Union: Trans Union Security Freeze, P. O. Box 6790, Fullerton, CA 92834-6790
Experian: Experian Security Freeze, P. O. Box 9554, Allen, TX 75013
Equifax: Equifax Security Freeze, P.O. Box 105788, Atlanta, GA 30348
Innovis Consumer Assistance: P.O. Box 1358, Columbus, OH 43216-1358
$10 + $10 + $10 + $2.40 + $2.40 + $2.40 + $.39 +$.39 +$.39 = $38.37
$10 - $30 for a temporary lift as needed.
"The Security Freeze may delay, interfere with or prohibit the timely approval of any subsequent request or application you make that involves access to your credit report. This may include new loans, credit, mortgages, insurance, rental housing, employment, investments, licenses, cellular phone service, utility service, digital signature service, Internet credit card transactions and extension of credit at point of sale."(source)
"Ultimately (telling someone to use a credit freeze) is bad advice," said Stuart Pratt, CEO of the Consumer Data Industry Association, which lobbies for the credit bureaus. "It's a little like telling consumers to brick up their windows and doors to prevent burglary, but then you can't get out of house when you need to." (source)
"It completely eliminates any point of sale type of credit transaction. If credit files were frozen, certainly that source of income for retailers would stop," said Experian spokeswoman Susan Henson.""We feel there are other tools consumer can take advantage of that are a little less draconian."(source)
"In the meantime, a consumer could miss out on a low mortgage rate or one-time credit card offer, says Nessa Feddis, senior federal counsel for the American Bankers Association. "It sounds good, but people don't realize how often they request their credit reports be pulled for a good deal," she says.(source)
"While lawmakers and privacy advocates may like security freezes, will consumers actually use them? The credit bureaus say no, pointing to the evidence in the two states where they already have the option." (source)
"But even if the choice is deliberate, giving consumers that choice is critical. Many consumers choose today to not lock their car doors. But the auto industry has repeatedly responded to the problem of auto theft, adding electronic devices, car stereo face plates, and electronic ignition keys."(source)
"Despite the enactment of the federal Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), interest in security-freeze legislation continues to be stimulated by a torrent of reports in the media of identity theft and large-scale security breaches of financial and personal data systems." (source)
"‘‘We're very cautious about security freeze legislation,'' said Rod Griffin, manager of public education at Experian. ‘‘File freezing completely removes the consumer from the credit marketplace. In extreme cases of fraud, that might make sense. But in most, particularly when seen as a preventive tool, you find that going to that extreme is not what the consumer wants.''"
Since states are tackling identity theft individually, Griffin said credit bureaus may find themselves complying with 50 different laws. Freeing blocked reports would not only be time-consuming, he said, but the delay could cause problems for the borrower.
(source)
"For example, because pre-existing business relationships are exempt from the credit freeze, the mortgage division of a bank that the consumer already has a relationship with can still access such consumer’s credit file. This pre-existing business relationship gives the bank’s mortgage division a decisive, competitive advantage over the mortgage broker." (source)
"For example, a creditor can be sued by the Federal Trade Commission, the states attorney general or the consumer for noncompliance with FCRA. The protective measures already in place, such as the fraud alert, must be given a chance to be effective in safeguarding consumers’ credit information." (source)
"State legislators must understand that a credit freeze is more than an inconvenience--it fails to accomplish the objective of closing the venues that identity thieves use to steal a consumer's identity."(source)
"The bottom line of any business to make a profit. The best way to make a sale is instant credit, to get people in and get the product purchased," Gaudette says. (source)
"Fraud alerts have already been tried and failed, said McNabb of the California privacy office.
"The reason (credit freezes) passed here was frustration with ineffectiveness of fraud alerts," she said. "We had a parade of identity theft victims who placed fraud alerts on their files and credit was issued anyway."(source)
"But identity theft watchdogs say the alerts are often ignored by creditors who are willing, say, to gamble that the potential plasma TV purchaser in front of them is legitimate, and write off any losses that might occur if the person turns out to be a con artist."
(source)
"On a more fundamental level, Hillebrand argued that even if freezes ultimately aren't popular with consumers, the option to lock up personal files is an important consumer right."(source)
"'No one wants to believe you. Creditors want you to prove that you were a victim, she laments.' Thomas says that in her case, creditors overlooked rudimentary checks, starting with her driver's license. While her impostor was tall and black, Thomas is white and 5-foot-3. The thief was also much younger.
"The first thing that would have gone on in my head was, 'What is a 20-year-old woman doing with that kind of credit score?' But they did nothing."(source)
"Many victims find that even with the fraud alert, there are companies in such a hurry to issue credit that they will open an account with a fraud alert on there," she says. Some consumers say they don't want to wait until they're victimized to take action."(source)
"Allowing individuals to place a "security freeze" on their credit files can help phishing victims protect against the fraud typically associated with the theft of sensitive personal information."(source)
"Louisiana’s freeze is also free for people 62 and older... Instead of the social security number being the old key, this PIN is your new key.”"source)
"On the last day of Utah's legislature, a credit-freeze bill was defeated because car dealers opposed it, arguing that such legislation would hurt their business since, they said, most car buyers want to drive their new car off the lot the same day they pick it out. If the sale is delayed because an extra day is required to obtain credit information, the dealers claim they would lose a percentage of the sales they would otherwise get."(source)
"The information brokers also should bear greater liability when a breach occurs. Up to now, courts have refused to allow defrauded consumers to bring suits against brokers like ChoicePoint. The reason: Since individual consumers aren't their customers, they have no business relationship with the brokers."(source)
"Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer of Counterpane Internet Security Inc., a Mountain View (Calif.) security company, notes that originally in Europe, consumers were liable for any ATM fraud unless they could show their bank was at fault. As a result, ATM security in Europe remained lax. It didn't improve until regulators started holding banks liable for customer losses, as was already the case in the U.S. "That's what regulation does," says Schneier. And given the difficulty information brokers have policing themselves, that may be what's needed once more."(source)
"The features of New Jersey's security freeze are: (1) the credit reporting agencies must provide a convenient method of use, such as phone or internet; (2) the credit reporting agencies must lift the freeze as quickly as possible, with the goal being within 15 minutes; (3) the freeze is free to put on and $5 to temporarily lift; and (4) it is available to all consumers. Other states' freezes authorize but don't require a convenient method of use; allow up to three days to lift; cost more; and, in some states, are limited to Identity Theft victims only."(source)
"In MassPIRG's survey, respondents who indicated they support freeze laws were asked if they still would if it took 48 hours to thaw them: About 89 percent remained supportive."(source)
"For those who have already been victims of identity theft, placing a security freeze on credit files offers an instant source of comfort. Those at high risk for ID theft, such as those going through divorce or those facing domestic violence, may also find the measure comforting."(source)
"After all, the industry spent years begging Congress to pass a law that would make it harder for consumers to declare personal bankruptcy. Because a security freeze must be "thawed" ahead of any credit purchase, it would require consumers to think ahead more, and could promote better financial planning. Instead, lobbying efforts by the credit and retail industries have helped kill freeze bills in four states. "(source)
In my opinion, consumers should have the choice to live life knowing that their credit reports are frozen and protected from the thieves. No worries, no hassles, no ordering of credit reports to check for irregularities. It just takes a phone call to unfreeze the reports for your credit needs with a pin number as the security lynch-pin. Why waste time monitoring for ID theft in complex credit reports?
Why not just prevent it by opting out of the risk pool?
It is a lot easier to worry about your existing arrangements; it is the ones you don't know about that cause major problems.
It is very mean for a CRA to require an ID theft victim to revisit the police department for their police report.
Why is it that you have to file a police report to become protected from identity theft? Why can't any American choose to be protected?
Why can't CRAs create a universal system that covers everybody?
CRAs only honor freeze requests in states that have passed the laws. Now there complaining about having to follow 17 different state laws. They want a national law that takes away your right to a freeze by requiring police reports to be filed.
Huh, who is Innovis? Check out the Bankrate article. Search the web for bio information. I don't have any proof, but I have a theory. Freezing your Innovis credit file will cut down on pre-approval credit offers. Yeah, there is an opt-out mechanism, but... the freeze may prevent you from even being on the pre-approved lists in the first place. Better to be weeded out of the lists in the first place then be approved on lists and simply opted out with the federal mechanism. Just a thought! :-)
Do security freezes boost your credit score? It is interesting to think about. I don't know, but someone should research this topic and publish results. The idea is that inquiries would be limited to those approved by you. Fewer inquiries means less "hits" to the score. I really don't know. Just an entertaining thought though...
Do security freezes catch identity thieves? You have a freeze in place. An "evil-doer" tries to access your credit. Wouldn't someone be tipped off when the thief couldn't provide the PIN number? What about when the thief is calling from New Jersey and not from your home phone? Don't the CRAs have caller-id of some kind? Placing a security freeze on your account may help alert someone to the thief's attempt. Seriously folks!
These following statements are personal opinion statements based on an individual experience and should not be construed as fact or generalized to any situtation.
Initiating the Freeze
February 14th, 2006 Equifax's response to a freeze request. Thankfully, they reconsidered.
The cost in perspective:
Disadvantages; arguments made against a security freeze
"Put simply, a freeze would lock down a consumer's credit report, preventing anyone -- including the legitimate consumer -- from instantly opening new credit cards or taking out loans."(source)
It has been duly noted:
"Walker's bill died before it reached a floor vote, killed largely by the auto dealer lobby, she said. A similar bill has already been dropped by the Indiana legislature."(source)
Ramblings...
