Why You Should Freeze Your Credit Now

What are the chances your social security number is out there?

In 2017, the Equifax credit bureau lost control of over 160 million private records, including social security numbers. That means that the likelihood of your social security number being publicly available from the Equifax hack is relatively high. Even if you were spared from the Equifax hack, data breaches occur daily. In this case, it’s probable your social security number was leaked by another breach. To make matters worse, companies don’t always report data breaches because they fear the fallout and backlash. You might have been a part of a breach that was sadly never reported. Shame on them.

Like many others, I have had the unfortunate experience of having my social security number exposed. One day in the summer of 2021, I received a notice in the email from a CPA that I had never worked with, or at least that I knew of. I thought to myself, “well, this is strange. Why am I getting this notice in the mail?” Turns out that their email had been hacked, and my social security number was among the data that was stolen from the hacked email. “Oh great” I said to myself, rolling my eyes.

Back when I worked as a freelancer, I sent W-9s to every person who cut me a check. This included my name, home address, and social security number. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. No big deal, right? I mean, they do need the information. While yes, the client does need my information, not everyone treats your sensitive information with the same concern that you do. Equifax was supposed to be expert at handling my PII (Personally Identifiable Information).

This means you can’t rely on your social security number being private information! What can you do to protect yourself in a world where data is being leaked left and right?

Freezing your credit.

In order to prevent identity theft, you can freeze your credit for free at the major credit bureaus. When you freeze your credit, you effectively prevent malicious parties from opening a new line of credit in your name. This also means that when you go to legitimately purchase a car, home, or open a new credit card, you first must unfreeze, or “thaw” your credit so that the credit check process can proceed.

In order to freeze your credit, you must do so at each major credit bureau in America. People often think about 3 credit bureaus, but they seldom realize that there are actually 4 credit bureaus that you will need to freeze your credit with!

The 4th credit bureau.

Everyone knows about the 3 big ones: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, but there is a 4th credit bureau by the name of Innovis. It is a good idea to freeze your credit with all 4 of them! To make it easy for you to find the 4 bureaus, you can click on these links to start freezing your credit.

• Equifax - https://www.equifax.com

• Experian - https://www.experian.com/

• TransUnion - https://www.transunion.com/

• Innovis - https://innovis.com/

Each company will ask you to open an account with them in order to freeze your credit. This means assigning an account to an email and creating a password. Be Co highly recommends that you document this all in a password manager and use a strong and unique password for each account!

Innovis will actually notify you that your credit account has been frozen via mail, as of June 2023, when this was published. When the documentation arrives, make sure to document that information in your password manager in order to keep it in one centralized, convenient, and safe place.

Thawing and re-freezing your credit.

If you need to open a credit card, get a home or car loan, you will need to temporarily thaw your credit. It doesn’t cost anything to thaw your credit. This means you’ll need to log into the credit bureaus that you have frozen your credit with. Thawing takes about 15 minutes to an hour to take effect, so plan ahead before you purchase that new car or home!

Once you have completed the transaction, make sure to re-freeze your credit so that you remain safe after your purchase.

This may seem like a lot of work…

Freezing your credit takes anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes, which isn’t long, but it’s more time spent than if you did nothing about it! You might say to yourself “my credit card covers fraudulent transactions. Why should I do this?” The answer is that if someone charges something to your card, the credit card company is legally required to protect you from fraudulent activity. If someone takes out a loan or opens a credit card in your name, there’s no one who can protect you but you.

In addition to having little to no protection against identity theft, it’s also difficult to prove that you didn’t take out the line of credit yourself, which can cause tremendous anguish and stress. The 30 – 60 minutes that you saved by not freezing your credit can cause you to lose days or weeks of effort in dealing with a stolen identity. In short, it’s a great idea to freeze your credit to reduce risk, help keep your credit rating excellent, potentially save you time, and keep your stress levels low.

Key Takeaways.

• While your social security number should be private information, the internet has made the theft and transmission of this PII very easy.

• You should assume that your social security number has been stolen by malicious parties.

• By taking a proactive stance and freezing your credit, you can help protect yourself against identity theft.

• Credit card companies are federally mandated to charge back any fraudulent charges on your behalf. If a malicious party opens a line of credit in your name, you have far less legal protection.

• Freezing your credit takes roughly 30-60 minutes of time, and can save you months of grief.

• It is good practice to store your credit bureau account information securely in a password manager, that uses both a password and 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication) to access.

How we can help:

Schedule a free I.T. consultation for your business, or call us if you want to talk about your cybersecurity. Be Co can help you take proactive measures that help fortify your personal and company defenses against malicious actors who seek to take what you have worked hard for.