Protect Your Identity & Financial Reputation
Protecting your identity doesn’t have to be difficult. In a few short minutes you can freeze your credit accounts with the four major credit bureaus, and while you’re at it, you should also add a free 1-year fraud alert. (I highly recommend you start by setting up a password manager before you start so you can have unique, long, strong, and random passwords for each bureau – like this: qWyHa%ucD#fCdFq$7oiMkasvSpE4%RigUkBn&Az.)
After you freeze and place alerts on your credit, start managing your identity by stopping data brokers from sharing and collecting information about you.
What is a credit freeze?
A credit freeze allows you to restrict access to your credit report, helping to prevent thieves from applying for new credit in your name. It also prevents a hard inquiry on your credit file that lenders may view as credit seeking and lower your score.
What is a fraud alert?
A fraud alert will tell a potential lender to take additional steps to verify your identity, such as calling the number you provide on the alert form.
The good news: you don’t need to spend money to protect your creditworthiness and financial identity. USA federal regulations require credit bureaus to allow freezing your credit for free.
What is a data broker? A data broker is someone that gathers information about you from multiple sources, like stores you shop at, social media, your LinkeIn profile, websites you visit, sweepstakes you’ve entered, your utility companies, voter registration, debt collectors, court records, property deeds, and more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_broker
Best practice is to assume that your personally identifiable information has already been stolen, and to add additional layers of protection so you don’t have to go through the months of hassle it takes to clean up your stolen identity. Given the length of time companies don’t know that they have had unauthorized access to their computer systems (like this), it’s safe to assume your information is already stolen and waiting to be used. But you can fight back, and you can slow them down, you can use these resources to fix it.
Experian Credit Freeze & Fraud Alert
For a free Experian credit freeze go here: https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
To place a free 1 year fraud alert with Experian go here: https://www.experian.com/fraud/center.html
Then click “Add a fraud alert”, and “Temporary fraud alert (1 year)”.
I recommend keeping your credit frozen and renewing your fraud alert every year until you need to apply for credit i.e. when you go to apply for a new credit card, mortgage, or car loan – you can temporarily unfreeze your credit and then immediately refreeze it when you are finished applying for new lines of credit.
Equifax Credit Freeze & Fraud Alert
For a free Equifax credit freeze go here:
https://www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services/credit-freeze/
To place a free 1 year fraud alert with Equifax go here:
https://www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services/credit-fraud-alerts/
Same as with Experian, complete both the freeze and the fraud alert. The bureaus may claim that you only need to put a freeze with one of them and they’ll do the rest, but in my experience helping family and friends with this process, you definitely need to do it yourself for all the agencies.
TransUnion Credit Freeze & Fraud Alert
For a free TransUnion credit freeze go here:
https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze
To place a free 1 year fraud alert with TransUnion go here:
https://www.transunion.com/fraud-alerts
Most of these companies will attempt to push their expensive paid services on you, they are mostly unnecessary as you can check in at any time to manage your credit freezes and fraud alerts manually.
Innovis Credit Freeze & Fraud Alert
Little known credit bureau Innovis, doesn’t get as much attention as “the big three” listed above, but they are more of a boutique agency that collects information the other three generally don’t, things like: rent payments, utility bills, mobile phone, and gym memberships. They mostly work with businesses to help verify information about consumers.
To freeze your credit with Innovis go here:
https://www.innovis.com/personal/securityFreeze
To place a fraud alert with Innovis go here:
https://www.innovis.com/personal/fraudActiveDutyAlerts
E-Verify Self Lock
In the USA, E-Verify’s Self Lock is a government service that can be used to help prevent identity fraud. Tax time is stressful enough, and it would be an absolute nightmare to find out that someone used your social security number to fraudulently work under your identity causing you to owe more in taxes.
For more information on Self Lock and creating a free E-Verify account:
https://www.e-verify.gov/employees/employee-self-services/mye-verify/self-lock
LexisNexis Credit Freeze
LexisNexis Risk Solutions is a data analytics company that works together with their family of products in marketing, risk analysis, and it collects extensive amounts of personal information from a variety of sources like property management companies, utilities, and possibly including social media profiles (Nexis® Social Analytics (powered by Talkwalker).
To freeze your credit profile with LexisNexis go here:
https://consumer.risk.lexisnexis.com/freeze
ChexSystems Credit Freeze
Over 75% of USA banks / credit unions utilize ChexSystems for background checks of consumers looking to open checking and savings accounts. They aggregate and report the last ~5 years of data provided by financial institutions.
Placing a security freeze with ChexSystems will include them mailing you a PIN number (do not lose this paper – copy and laminate it if necessary). The PIN will be required to lift the freeze, or update your information (name change, dispute a report, etc).
To freeze your profile with ChexSystems go here:
https://www.chexsystems.com/security-freeze/place-freeze
AAA Perk: Experian ProtectMyID
If you have AAA (American Automobile Association) they also include Experian ProtectMyID Essential for free:
https://www.aaa.com/experianidtheft/
There’s not much benefit to the paid credit monitoring plans if you’re utilizing the other credit tools from your banking institutions. See the Bonus Credit Tools section for how to use credit monitoring included with your account at select financial institutions.
Recovering from Identity Theft
If you’ve been a victim of identity theft:
File a police report immediately – you’ll need a copy of the report to dispute that you’re responsible for financial damages incurred by the theft.
Then go here to personalize your recovery plan and report it to the Federal Trade Commission:
https://www.identitytheft.gov/
Bonus Credit Tools
Most major credit card companies will offer credit profile insights for free with your credit or bank account.
American Express members can explore your FICO® Score 8 and Experian® credit report with personalized insights, for free.
https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/features-benefits/free-credit-score/
Chase Bank has their Credit Journey included with most accounts utilizing VantageScore 3.0® by Experian™.
https://www.chase.com/personal/credit-cards/free-credit-score
Discover Bank offers SSN Alerts & Dark Web Monitoring with their cards; the dark web monitoring is ok, but the credit alerts are basically free monitoring and notification of new credit applications. Discover uses FICO® Score 8 data provided by your TransUnion credit report.
https://www.discover.com/credit-cards/member-benefits/security/ssn-newaccount-alerts/
CitiBank will also provide its members their FICO® Bankcard Score 8 for free based on data from Equifax. They have really great charts and explanations of what impacts your credit score and how each metric is weighted.
https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/en/Products/FICO-Score
Lastly, if you’re shopping for financial products, NerdWallet is an amazing resource that will help you to compare financial products.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/