Identity theft is an increasingly prevalent problem in the United States. Almost 10 million people will fall victim to identity theft each and every year. The typical victim of identity theft will have to spend at least 60 hours resolving the issues brought on by ID theft, often causing them to miss time at work. According to the FTC, Identity theft now costs businesses $48 billion dollars annually and the consumer $5 billion dollars. Many states are now offering a guaranteed means for consumers to protect them selves from identity theft. It’s called a security freeze (or a credit freeze), here’s how it works.
A credit freeze quite simply stops identity thieves from getting credit in your name. It locks access to your credit report and your credit score from any business that requests it. Without this information, there’s no way that a business will issue any sort of credit to a thief trying to use your name. This won’t fully protect you, because a few credit cards here and there that are so interested in offering credit, that they don’t check people’s credit scores. These are the companies that have a history of issuing pets and dead people credit scores.
What happens when you want to take a loan? Does this mean you won’t be able to take out a loan in your name either? Fortunately the credit industry has thought of a solution for this. You’ll be given a special pin number that you can use online to unlock your credit report and credit score when you want to apply for a loan, or are part of any business transaction that requires your credit score. After you have completed the transaction, you can put the freeze back on your credit report and credit score so that no one can get to it.
Unfortunately credit freezes aren’t available in all states since there is no federal law guaranteeing them, but a number of states have stepped up and passed laws which allow their residents to freeze their credit score. The following states have credit freeze laws on the books: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
In order to get your credit frozen, you’ll want to head on over to FinancialPrivacyNow.org, which has the instructions on how to freeze your credit for each state that allow its citizens to issue a credit freeze.
