Credit Freezes are Free: Let the Ice Age Begin
Summary: The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act, enacted in May 2018, made it free in every U.S. state to place, thaw and lift a credit freeze at the three major bureaus, and also made freezes free for dependents under 16 and incapacitated adult family members. The law also extended fraud alerts from 90 days to one year, required free electronic credit monitoring for active duty military, and left the bureaus' paid credit lock services ungoverned by any law.
What's compelling: The bureaus make about $1 every time they sell access to a credit file, and a freeze denies them that revenue while blocking ID thieves from opening new lines of credit in your name - yet the lock products they market as easier alternatives carry no legal terms at all.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
- Topics
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