Equifax lock and alert10/12/2023 ![]() Related: What's a credit freeze and should you do it? On Wednesday, I returned to the Equifax website to freeze my credit and finally sign up for the monitoring. I think the extra protection is worth the effort and potential hassle. But I'm not planning on opening a new loan or credit card anytime soon. In New Jersey, where I live, it costs $5. The drawback is that it could get annoying when I want to open a new account myself, requiring me to contact the credit agency to temporarily lift the freeze - and it could cost a small fee depending on your state. "The only way to prevent new account identity theft is through a freeze," said Mike Litt, consumer program advocate with U.S. It blocks businesses from accessing my report, as long as I don't already have an account with them. I hope that someone who was looking at cost as a hurdle to sign up for one or the other will now go ahead and do so because it is a very effective way to protect your credit reports.After talking to experts, I decided that I should put a freeze on my credit reports as well. “I hope that because the freezes are now going to be free into June and now the lock will be free forever. “The surveys that have been published on this issue suggest that people have largely forgotten about the Equifax data breach and never really did much about it,” Ulzheimer said. 27, one day after he was named Equifax’s interim CEO. first announced the service as “long-term support” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Sept. ![]() Even I tried it out where I randomly punched in a Social Security number and it told me I was impacted and I punched in the same number a second time and it said I was not impacted.” “Right at the beginning, folks had the option of typing in their Social Security number. “They’ve had issues with rolling out since the breach was first made public,” Zafar said. He noted the website allowing people to check if they were impacted shortly after the breach was made public last fall was also problematic. Professor Zafar, who leads the mobile application development center at Kennesaw State University, said he felt it was clear the company did not do enough quality testing with this “Lock & Alert” website and smartphone app. “I hope they extend the deadline or address it as any company should: with integrity.” On Twitter, one user reported issues with signing up for Lock & Alert. “Equifax’s response to this whole thing has been pretty ostentatiously underwhelming,” Arul said. Smyrna resident and energy technology consultant Rex Arul said he had trouble signing up multiple times. Zafar and others reported they had issues signing up for the free lifetime service when it was first launched on Jan. ![]() The deadline to sign up for one year of free credit monitoring services that it offered after the breach was made public is Jan. ![]() Zafar said the three credit agencies need to cooperate on a security strategy because they all have similar data and people can’t opt-in or out of these agencies handling their data.Ī credit lock is similar to a credit freeze, but you won’t need a pin number to unlock your credit files, and you won’t have to pay the fee, usually $2 to $10 depending on the state you live in, to freeze and unfreeze credit.Įquifax announced it will extend free credit freezes until June 30. “It’s not a bad service, but unless someone signs up for all three of those it really does not make sense to sign up for one of those,” Zafar said. Humayun Zafar, a Kennesaw State University associated professor for information security, said the other two credit agencies Transunion and Experian need to follow its lead. “It’s as simple as locking and unlocking your Equifax credit report by simply swiping left or right, which is certainly more convenient than how you would have to unfreeze your credit report, which is not app-based,” Ulzheimer said. Credit bureau expert John Ulzheimer, who used to work at Equifax and FICO, said what’s also new is that the mobile app allows you to do it on your phone.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |