However, consumers still have only until Jan. 31 to sign up for one year of free credit-monitoring through Equifax. Both offers came last fall after the credit-reporting company revealed that up to 145 million consumers' private data had been compromised in a massive data breach. Be aware, ...
Also, if you haven’t done so lately, take a moment to visitannualcreditreport.comto get a free copy of your credit file. A consumer survey published earlier this monthfound that roughly half of all Americanshaven’t bothered to do this since the Equifax breach....
For those that appear to have had significant data breached, it may be worth investigating putting a security freeze or credit freeze on your account. This puts a lock on your Social Security number to prevent new lines of credit being opened. ...
What’s the difference between a credit freeze and a credit lock?There’s a big difference. A credit lock costs money and, in most cases, shouldn’t be necessary if you freeze your credit.Read about a credit freeze vs. a credit lock. Can I place a credit freeze for my child?Yes, y...
Intuit says the change is tied to an “exciting” and “free” new service that will let millions of small business employees get easy access to employment and income verification services when they wish to apply for a loan or line of credit. ...
A Simple Credit Freeze will Lock Down Your Credit Freezing your credit is the number one way to protect against financial identity theft. If everyone in the country locked down their credit, identity thieves would quickly be out of business. At least, a major part of their business. Take 30...
So if someone steals your credit card number, or your username, or your password, that's like they stole the key to the front door of your house. It's a pain, but you just change the lock and you're fine. Someone steals your social security number, that's like stealing every key ...
"A credit freeze will lock the criminals out of opening financial accounts in your name, but there are other types of identity theft. And that includes medical, criminal and governmental," Velasquez said. At first, Equifax was charging hack victims a fee for freezing their accounts. But after...
https://www.consumerreports.org/equifax/how-to-lock-down-your-money-after-the-equifax-breach/ Note that a fraud alert is free, unlike a credit freeze.rawful • September 13, 2017 7:20 PM https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/09/13/1840258/equifax-had-admin-as-login-and-password-in-...
Put a fraud alert on your file.Fraud alerts are free, but they don't lock down your credit. An alert means a business must verify that you are the person asking for a credit request by calling you, for example. A basic fraud alert expires after 90 days, which means consumers must be...