Were you one of the millions affected by the credit data breach at Equifax? In fact, just about half the US population did, in fact, have a portion of their Equifax data stolen. I have worked for the federal government since 1999, and in that time I have had my credit stolen twice from the agency I worked for at the time. And then came the mother of all data breaches as far as I am concerned, and that was when my entire personal background file was stolen from the Office of Personnel Management. In that breach, we are talking Social Security number, date of birth, current and previous addresses, mother’s maiden name and even my fingerprints. So I was not all that surprised when Equifax notified me that my data with them had been stolen what amounts to at least the fourth time that I am aware of.
It is inevitable that at some point your personal information will be stolen from an employer, a creditor or some other source. Let us face the facts that the federal government has allowed my data to be stolen on three separate occasions so if you think you are immune to such an act think again. And how did the government protect me and countless others? In the first two instances, I was given credit monitoring services for a single year. With the third and largest data breach at first, we were offered a single year of credit monitoring which was adjusted to at least ten years due to the severity and types of data that was stolen. While many may think that this type of service is adequate the problem is you are not notified that an account has been opened in your name until it is too late and that account is indeed open and active. But not to worry, these plans come with insurance in the event that something like this occurs. It does not help you in the least that you now have to deal with an illegal account and it is up to you to prove that it was in fact illegal.
Well, there is an additional step that I and countless others recommend that you take even if you have not been the victim of a data breach. So what is that step you ask? It is to put a credit freeze on all three of your credit profiles at not only Equifax but Experian and TransUnion. Currently, Equifax is the only one that is offering this service for free due to their negligence, but I would recommend that you pay the small fee to freeze the other two as well. Depending on the state you live in the fee at each agency could be between $3 and $10 which is not all that much for the added peace of mind that your profile will not be accessible to others.
How does a credit freeze work then? All you need to do is go to each credit bureau and fill out their request to freeze your credit file and pay the small fee. If you have a police report that states you are the victim of identity theft you can have the fee waived. Once you have signed up and paid, you are provided a numeric pin to lift and replace your credit freeze. Depending on the state you live in this can be an additional fee of up to $10 each time you lift and refreeze your file. If you freeze your credit report, it simply means that without lifting the freeze no new accounts can be established in your name due too the fact a creditor will not be able to see what your file contains. And if you want to open a new account all you have to do is use the pin that they provided when you initially froze your file and place a temporary lift on the bureau or bureaus that the creditor needs access to.
So if a credit freeze can aid in the prevention of someone opening an account in your name or assist in the prevention of someone stealing your identity why is it more people do not use them? One is the cost associated with placing a credit freeze on all three of your profiles. Now certain members of Congress are advocating that this service be free to people to help protect them from these financial crimes but credit is big business and if everyone had a freeze on their data it leads us to the second reason. A lot of people are impulse purchasers, and it does take some time although not much to lift a credit freeze. Also, many people do not like the idea of paying an additional fee for each lift and refreeze, so there is a monetary reason for the three credit bureaus to keep things status quo as well. Let us hope that special interest groups and politicians who have our best interest at heart can instigate some much-needed changes.
No matter if you have already been the victim of a data breach or are just being prudent spend the nominal fee and protect yourself with a credit freeze on all three of the credit bureaus. If you have any questions or need any additional information, please feel free to contact me or leave a comment here.
