Everyone should read this : Long story short, about 5 weeks ago, someone tried to steal my identity and apply for multiple credit accounts, including some dubious web based credit accounts. They were only armed with my address and Driver license number, and were ultimately unsuccessful. Thankfully, Chase sent me a letter alerting me to this and so I pulled my credit report etc. and shut them all down. It took me six hours of phone time to track down and ensure none of the requests went through, but this is not the point. After signing up for life lock, for $25/mth I found that you can simply lock your credit for $10 a service, ie experian , Eqifax and transunion ( total $30). I had to find this out myself ,as the credit agencies make a lot of money by allowing companies to check your credit for unsolicited credit cards etc etc. and they dont want to tell you this, as it kills their business. It took me six hours to merely find out status of the accounts applied for, so can you imagine actually trying to unravel an identity theft. Ugghhhh.. Something to note, the attempted credit requests knocked my fico scores down by almost 80 points in the meantime, even through they were rejected. Not too worried about that, as they will recover, so whatever. It would however piss me off if I was buying something and received a higher interest rate due to the lower score ! Bullet dodged ! I have since cancelled my lifelock account, as I have locked my credit. Once locked, even you cant open new credit unless you thaw or unfreeze your account for an additional $10/agency. It takes 24 hours to do this, so no big deal. Freezing your credit does not affect your fico and does not affect your current credit accounts. It simply stops new credit from being established until you explicitly decide otherwise. So..... It seems to me that leaving your credit open, is not unlike leaving your front door open when your not home - stupid ! I can guarantee you , that one identify theft success will cost you WAY more than $30 ! So think about it !! end of rant !
Posted on: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 23:31:50 +0000
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