Equifax and credit freeze

[Pearce G.]

I've been reading that experts recommend freezing your credit with each of the credit reporting agencies as a better defense (compared to credit monitoring) against the Equifax and other data breaches.

Question for lenders: What does a credit freeze do to the loan approval process?

[Merritt Noel]

Not sure what happened to my post from yesterday on this thread?  

There is a simple process that you (the borrower) must go through to temporarily lift the freeze or thaw your credit. While I have not had a client who has had their credit frozen in quite some time, I expect this will change in the coming months.

The process is fairly simple to thaw your credit. The typical timeframe is anywhere from 3 hours to 24 hours. Please note that you may be required to pay fee to unlock your credit...typical $10. Here is a link to see if your state requires you to pay a fee. https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze/credit-fr... I am hoping this nominal fee will be lifted by each state given the gravity of the security breach @ Equifax.

Here are simple instructions to unfreeze or thaw their credit.

Trans Union: You may request a lift of your freeze from Trans Union online, by mail, or by phone. Online: https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze/place-cre...

By phone: (Cant post phone number here). They will need your Social Security number, date of birth, Security Freeze PIN that they provided upon initial freeze, lift type, and start and end dates. It will take about 15 minutes to process the request.

By mail: You will need to complete the Lift section of the Security Freeze Form that was sent to you with the Security Freeze information letter, after you requested the Security Freeze, and mail it to the address at the bottom of the form. It can take up to three business days from date of receipt to process your request.

Please note: If you are in the state of Colorado and are requesting a lift you must ask for a “Global Lift”. This does not require third parties to have a PIN to access your credit file.

Experian: You may request a lift of your freeze from Experian either by phone or online.

Online: www.experian.com/tempfreezeremoval

Phone: (Cant post phone number here) For either you will need to provide your identification information and PIN that you were given at the time of placing the freeze and the date range for the lift. Experian will then provide you with a PIN to give to third parties that need to retrieve your Experian report.

Equifax: You may request a lift of your freeze from Equifax either by phone or online.

Online: https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_Pers...

Phone: (Cant post phone number here) For either you will need to provide your 10 digit security freeze confirmation PIN provided in your confirmation letter, the date range of your specific lift and the name of the specific credit grantor/report user you would like to receive your Equifax credit report.

Feel free to message me if you would like the phone numbers to the specific bureaus. Please do yourself a favor and signup for some sort of credit monitoring if you do not freeze your credit.