After filling all the information they needed and paying the fee, they said I need to send it in writing with a fee. Shouldn’t they have said that before taking the payment? Now I have to call them to get the refund. The line is of course busy. I can’t believe we trust these organizations with our information.
It just doesn’t give me a warm and fuzzy when all the customer service for the credit bureaus (at least the few I’ve talked to in the past days) are off shore. Really, maybe they should at least FAKE having a local person with an accent I can understand before asking me for my SSN and credit card number.
Grrrrr
@Iglooo – Same happened to me with Experian, and I have two charges as I was trying for both children. I am going to give it a few days to see if the charge actually moves from pending to actual instead of trying to call Experian right now. They may not have any record of the charge yet if it is still pending.
Equifax switched to automatically generated PINs sometime between the time I applied for my two children. Grrrr…
I just spoke to Transunion to get a sense of what D needed to freeze hers (she has to call) and got a definitely American woman who was very helpful. So Experian done for both, TU for me and have to wait until the 13th to freeze Equifax.
@OHMomof2 – I had to take a second go at TU to get it to work online but it finally did. Of course, that does not give me great faith in these systems…Could not get Experian to work for either child, but it sounds as though you have. Perhaps I should give that another shot.
Experian for D was fine. You choose your own PIN (just like TU). @CT1417
I was able to freeze mom’s and my Equifax.
I have an ‘appointment’ for September 12th with Equifax to sign up for their monitoring.
You can freeze your credit without signing up for monitoring. I have no interest in becoming part of their marketing list when the free monitoring period expires.
Iglooo, same thing happened to me last night. I’ve tried 2 of the bureaus using both my name and my husband’s and I have yet to be able to complete a freeze online.
@dietz199 - I’m waiting to see what Equifax offers as I want to freeze, not monitor. I have to wait until Wednesday.
I am concerned about bank accounts and my little brokerage account and such…nothing to do there, I guess?
I am one who got the message that my information was not compromised. My H and I find that hard to believe when all of our loans and credit cards are jointly held. I put a alert on my credit for now.
H, one D and her BF put alerts on for now while they figure out what they want to do.
I need to get on my other two kids. I think they shoudo put freezes on. My other D and her BF will freeze but they didn’t have time to make the phone calls yesterday.
All four of us did check our credit and everything looks fine. I think the problems are going to show up down the line when people get less diligent about checking regularly.
When you apply online for a credit freeze, do you have to upload copies of your ID? I’m a bit reluctant to send those over the internet, although I suppose that if you send them via regular mail they’ll just scan and upload them anyway.
Anyone decide not to do anything?
I didn’t have to, no.
I’m not doing anything. I think it is futile. (As I said up-thread, I do some data privacy work in my legal practice).
I too think it is futile as the crooks have all the needed info to clone one’s identity and cause more damage than the stuff that can be prevented by the freezes and monitoring.
I decided not to do anything. As far as I know, there would be no reason for Equifax to have any of our info. But even if they do, it just didn’t make sense to me to give more information to a company that has already proven itself to have security issues.
For the last few years I’ve checked bank accounts and credit cards online almost daily. That’s all I ever plan on doing. I’ve been able to catch criminal activity almost immediately when it occurs. Once fake checks were attempted on my checking acct.
If someone is using my identity — I don’t see how I can ever know except by luck.
I didn’t upload or download anything. I did online freeze all 5 for H and me for $30.40. May get refund if $10 for the freezes on Equifax, but who knows. H did have to do automated phone line for Transunion to complete process.
It may be futile but felt better to do something than just wring hands. Had meant to freeze for some time anyway.
I haven’t done anything yet. I’m waiting for the dust to settle.
Going to file my taxes ASAP this year, and make sure my kids do also.
Gosh…maybe EVERY year. This is a nightmare that has no end date 
Thanks for the info @HImom.