Protect Yourself by Freezing Your Credit
Have you ever had a concern over the integrity of your credit rating? How often do you review in detail your credit history? Probably not often enough, right? Surely you don’t want to risk potentially lowering your credit score by checking it too often. So, what can be done?
Freeze your credit. Do it now.
In less than the amount of time it probably takes to drive to the office, you can freeze your credit with the three primary reporting bureaus. Why is that important? Because without your credit being frozen, bad guys can, once they have gained access to your personal information, use your credit history to secure lines of credit for themselves. It’s not likely that they’re going to secure a jumbo mortgage in your name, but they may secure a credit card at a store and then go on a nice little shopping spree there.
Again, freeze your credit. Do it now.
Important to keep in mind that there will be a slight inconvenience after freezing your credit. Each time you desire to apply for a mortgage, new car loan, credit card or even something as simple as opening a new savings account with a bank, you’ll need to “unfreeze” your credit. This means you’ll need to login to each of the three credit bureaus and click a few buttons. (It really is that simple.)
To get started, visit the websites of each of the three credit reporting bureaus. Each has a banner area or button on the linked pages that make getting started incredibly easy.
You will need to remember or keep the usernames and passwords in a safe place. Also, freezing your credit doesn’t mean that you will not still have other forms of financial scams for concern. For example, someone could still steal a credit card from you. However, freezing your credit will force bad guys to either try much, much harder to open an account in your name – or just move onto scamming someone who has not frozen their credit. Of those two choices, who do you want to be?