Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian all offer account freezing for free. Take advantage of it! It is a great way to prevent someone from wrecking your credit
Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian all offer account freezing for free. Take advantage of it! It is a great way to prevent someone from wrecking your credit
I did this when the Equifax breaches happened.
Freezing the accounts definitely had negative impacts on my credit score, despite having safe CC utilization and no debt. I saw about a 20 point dip from doing it.
Sure they claim it won’t have any effect but being safe is risky behavior to a business that relies on you being unsafe.
I also did it at that time. I was afraid it was going to be an inconvenience, but its only come up twice in all that time.
For people considering it, you can request a short-term thaw any time you know you’re going to be doing something that requires a credit check. That way it gets refrozen without the chance of me forgetting to do so.
I can’t see how freezing your accounts led to a decrease in your credit score. It could have been something simple like credit utilization (higher credit card bill that month) affecting the score instead.
I’m not sure why it would impact a credit score. But to be fair, the calculation of credit score is not at all transparent