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’m not sure why it would impact a credit score. But to be fair, the calculation of credit score is not at all transparent
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.