LIFT EQUIFAX CREDIT FREEZE WITHOUT PIN FREE

Otherwise, I’d strongly advise you to consider freezing your credit file at the major credit bureaus. In short, if you have already been victimized by identity theft (fraud involving existing credit or debit cards is not identity theft), it might be worth paying for these credit monitoring and repair services (although more than likely, you are already eligible for free coverage thanks to a recent breach at any one of dozens of companies that have lost your information over the past year). The most you can hope for from a credit monitoring service is that they give you a heads up when ID theft does happen, and then help you through the often labyrinthine process of getting the credit bureaus and/or creditors to remove the fraudulent activity and to fix your credit score. As I discussed at length in this primer, credit monitoring services aren’t really built to prevent ID theft.

LIFT EQUIFAX CREDIT FREEZE WITHOUT PIN FREE

If your response to this breachapalooza is to do what each of the breached organizations suggest - to take them up on one or two years’ worth of free credit monitoring services - you might sleep better at night but you will probably not be any more protected against crooks stealing your identity. Office of Personnel Management gone missing, crooks already have access to the information needed to open new lines of credit or file phony tax refund requests in your name. Even without the help of mega breaches like the 80 million identities leaked in the Anthem compromise or last week’s news about 4 million records from the U.S.

Click here for a primer on identity theft protection services.Ī seemingly never-ending stream of breaches at banks, healthcare providers, insurance companies and data brokers has created a robust market for thieves who sell identity data.

Lift equifax credit freeze without pin