A few weeks ago, a man in our state opened his mail and found a credit card statement for an account he’d never opened, with a $4,200 balance on it. Someone had used his Social Security number to apply for the card, ordered a phone, electronics, and prepaid gift cards, and disappeared. By the time he saw the statement, the money was gone.
The single thing that would have stopped that fraud — for free, in less than thirty minutes — is something most people have never set up. It’s called a credit freeze. And it is, by a wide margin, the most effective protection against identity theft you can put in place yourself.
What a Credit Freeze Actually Does
A credit freeze is a lock on your credit file at each of the three major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. When the freeze is in place, no new account — credit card, car loan, store card, mortgage, anything — can be opened in your name. Lenders simply cannot pull your credit report, and without a credit report, they cannot approve credit.
A freeze does not stop you from using your existing accounts. Your current credit cards still work. Your bank accounts still work. Auto-pay continues. Your credit score is not affected. The freeze only blocks NEW credit from being opened — which is exactly the part of identity theft that does the most damage.
A freeze is free under federal law. Each of the three bureaus must offer it for free, and you can place, lift, or remove a freeze any time you want, also for free.
How to Place a Freeze with Each Bureau
You need to place a freeze with all three bureaus separately. There is no central place that does it for all of them at once. Each takes about ten minutes online.
Equifax — go to equifax.com and choose “Place a Freeze.” You’ll create an account, verify your identity (they’ll ask things like the city you used to live in or the name of your old loan), and confirm. You’ll be given a PIN. Save it somewhere safe.
Experian — go to experian.com/freeze. Same flow: account, identity questions, PIN.
TransUnion — go to transunion.com and look for “Credit Freeze.” Same flow.
If you don’t want to do it online, all three bureaus accept freeze requests by phone (their automated systems work for placing the freeze) and by mail (slower, but available). The phone numbers and mailing addresses are on the FTC’s identity theft site at identitytheft.gov.
The whole process for all three takes most people about thirty minutes. When you’re done, you should keep the three PINs in a safe place — a paper file, a password manager, somewhere you’ll find it again in a year.
How to Lift a Freeze When You Need Credit
When you do want to apply for new credit — a new credit card, a car loan, signing up for a new service that runs a credit check — you lift the freeze temporarily.
Each bureau lets you do this online or by phone using your PIN. You can lift the freeze entirely (until you re-place it), for a specific date range (say, the day you go to the dealership), or for a specific creditor (more rare). The lift is instant — within a few minutes you can apply, and the freeze automatically re-applies after the window closes if you set it that way.
Most people lift the freeze maybe once a year, and it takes five minutes. It is dramatically less hassle than dealing with the aftermath of identity theft.
A few practical notes:
- Freeze your spouse’s credit too, if you’re married. Identity thieves often try couples one after the other.
- Freeze your kids’ credit if they’re minors. Children’s Social Security numbers are especially attractive to thieves because no one is checking the child’s credit report. Each bureau lets a parent freeze a minor’s credit using the child’s birth certificate and SSN.
- A freeze doesn’t help with existing accounts. If a thief uses your existing credit card number, that’s a different problem (covered by the card’s fraud protection). A freeze is specifically about new accounts.
How LurkAlert Helps
LurkAlert is focused on the technical side of scam protection — watching your computer for remote access tools, fake virus pop-ups, and browser hijacks. A credit freeze is the financial side. The two work together.
If a scammer does get past us, or past you on the phone, and tries to use information they collected to open new accounts in your name, the freeze blocks them at the bureau level. We can’t place a freeze for you — only you can, with each bureau directly — but we’d rather you have both layers in place than just one.
If you’ve been meaning to do this for years and never quite gotten around to it, today is a good day. It is the highest-leverage thirty minutes you’ll spend on online safety this year.
