What is Freezing Your Credit and Should You Do It?

Freezing your credit prevents lenders from seeing your credit reports. It can be a beneficial thing to do for many reasons and, thankfully, it is now free due to congressional action following the Equifax breach. Freezing your credit is important to prevent a data breach and protect your credit. Is it an extra step to prevent your credit information from being used wrongfully. So, if somebody were to apply for credit in your name, then the lender would not be able to access your credit because it is frozen, and thus would not be able to approve the loan. 

You may be asking if this process is complicated or worth it. Well, it is as easy as picking up the phone. You can easily freeze your credit online or over the phone, as well as unfreeze it when you need to apply for credit yourself. You can even set up a short period of time to lift the freeze temporarily if you know when you’re going to be applying or looking for a credit loan. 

Another good thing about freezing your credit is that it will not affect your credit score. So, you can do it whenever you need. Parents can even do it for their children to help protect their credit for them.

Freezing your credit cannot protect against all forms of identity theft

If somebody has access to your existing credit card information, or if they have your social security number, then you are still at risk for identity theft. So, even if you freeze your credit, you still need to monitor all of your finances and make sure there is no fraudulent activity. 

Debt collectors and lenders you have been borrowing from previously can also still see your credit information even if it is frozen. So, freezing your credit does not block everybody from viewing your credit, but it can still be very beneficial in protecting your credit.