Many years ago I was invited to listen to an FBI agent give a presentation about identity theft. It was very informative and I learned a lot that day. In fact, I learned something very valuable that wasn’t explicitly taught in the class. After listening to many cases, I began to notice a pattern. Whenever someone learned they were a victim of identity theft the first thing they had to do was contact the credit bureau and initiate a freeze. So, I thought to myself, “why should I wait until it’s too late, let’s put a lock on this thing now”! Are you ready to protect your credit from identity theft? Here is what I did…
Taking action
It’s been more than fifteen years since I froze all of my accounts, and I haven’t had any issues or credit related concerns. Moreover, I was never worried when I heard about the latest data breach on the news, I knew that I was the only person capable of opening credit under my name. Now that’s peace of mind you can’t put a price on!
Step one
The first step you’ll need to do is log into each of the three credit bureaus to initiate the freeze. There is no charge for this and its very simple to setup and disable whenever you need to apply for a credit card or obtain a loan. Also, if you are paying for a monthly service to monitor identity theft, you may want to inquire as to what benefits you are receiving and what course of action they’ll take when an incident occurs. Personally, I don’t find any value in those services but perhaps you may.
Pro Tip: Be sure to select “freeze account”, there should never be a moment when you’ll need to input your credit card information, this is a free service. Lastly, save all your login and passwords in a place where you’ll never lose them or forget where they’re at! This is very important!
And while you’re at it, you may want to consider opting out of receiving firm offers of credit in the mail.
