Freezing Credit--Good vs Bad

Parent Cafe
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@conmama, we didn’t file that form (I don’t think so anyway). We had to go to the IRS office and try to get our return straightened out when we tried to efile and got blocked because they wanted us to amend an existing already filed return. When we went into the office (now THAT was a huge hassle and wait and wait and wait…) the guy that helped us did everything and we just got the PIN in the mail a while later. And we haven’t used it yet this year, so I can’t really advise on doing the form!

@Oregon101 , I forgot about the SS hassle with having credit locked down and I should not have. I went into SS (surprisingly less wait than the above mentioned IRS) and got the account opened up that way. DH just did it, too. Only took about an hour of wait time and 5 minutes of face time. Now he and I can both log on as we wish. Might be a problem if there isn’t a SS office near by. For my mom, the closest office is 75 miles away. Kind of hard on elderly people with no transportation to get there. I am mad about that level of service, but that is a topic for a different thread.

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We were victims of identity theft several years ago so have frozen our credit at no charge. TransUnion updated their database or something and managed to lose the info that we were victims of fraud so tried to charge me when we went to unfreeze it to change gas providers. Its a bit of a pain to freeze and unfreeze but reassuring to know we wont be victimized again.

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I’m thinking of putting on a free Fraud Alert that will have creditors try to contact to be sure that anyone applying for something in your name is really you. The Fraud Alert is free and is just one more step so no “instant” credit – usually. It can be in effect for up to 7 years and can be obtained online. Anyone with feedback on the Fraud Alert that they chose to use? Thanks!

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http://learn.equifax.com/credit/fraud-alerts/

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Thanks, JYM. We haven’t had any fraudulent charges since about 2012, but there are so many breaches in the news, it gets pretty old reading about them. Will have to decide what makes sense.

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We had someone try too put charges through on our compromised card that was caught up in the HD breech. At least that time (A) we stopped it cold and (B) they didnt have our SSNs

At DS#2’s college for the first year or 2 they used his SSN as hi student account #. Made me nuts. They finally changed it. I have 1 of the 3 bureaus frozen with his credit.Now I just have to remember which one :slight_smile:

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RE: college students and SSN. I thought I was being so ‘clever’ by getting through SATs, Common App, and then enrolling in college w/o having to submit my son’s SSN. Toward the end of the first semester at college, he received an email requiring him to present himself and his SSN at some office. They needed SSN for some tax document they file…He does not receive FA, does not have a loan. Is the tax document so that we can take $$ from the 529?

I do worry about ID theft for college students also

@jym626 – I would have been furious if the school used SSN for college ID. What were they thinking? Even back in my day, we were assigned a six digit student ID that was used for everything.

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Re not losing the PIN if you freeze your credit, I’m going to keep a copy here and put a copy in the safe deposit box at the bank. It’ll be a bit of a hassle if I can’t find the home copies, but at least I’ll know I can lay my hands on them.

DH and I froze our credit first thing Monday morning. If this were just a payment-system breach, like the Target breach, I’d probably settle for an alert. But with the treasure trove of our information now floating around the internet, we didn’t want to mess around. If it’s inconvenient at some point down the road, so be it. Far better than having our identities stolen.

I attempted to freeze my 91-year-old mother’s credit as well. I was successful with Equifax, but not Experian, possibly because she recently moved. I think I’ll have my brother pursue that since he’s POA. Will work on Transunion tomorrow.

I also called the investment firm where Mom has her life savings. The question was, if an elderly-sounding woman posing as Mom called and gave you the correct SSN, DOB, address, etc., and politely asked you to send her a check for $20K, would you do it? The advisor said we should immediately put a password on the account for verbal access.

D is a former Anthem member, so I emailed her on Friday to warn about phishing emails (glad I did! she hadn’t even heard about it.). I’m in the process of composing a primer for her about credit freezes/alerts, checking her credit reports, filing taxes ASAP, etc., which she will hopefully act on. Welcome to the adult world!

Credit monitoring/freeze will not help us with a new issue I’m just learning about, medical identity theft. The hackers got everything they need to access medical care in our names, including medical ID numbers, and probably our insurance card numbers. And that’s not something you can prevent; you can only watch your medical bills and EOBs like a hawk, for the rest of your life.

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CT1417,
I was not a happy camper that the school was using SSNs as student account numbers. I must not have been the only one, as they did change it in is sophomore year. Well, then we had to reregister all information and he no longer allowed me to see his grades on line :frowning:

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@LasMa – I have noticed the last couple of years a request to see my driver’s license in addition to my medical ID card when going for a blood draw or mammogram, as in, places where the receptionist does not know me personally.

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@Lasma…thanks for your post. I’m going to email DS at college and also talk to the one getting ready to go to college about the breach and phishing. I’m also going to have them freeze their credit immediately. I’ll have to hang on to their PIN numbers until they are responsible enough :slight_smile:

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As I recall way back in the day my Hawaii drivers license number was my social security number - this was late 60s or early 70s. Or perhaps my memory of the good old days in the Aloha State is playing tricks with me.

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Apparently, it used to be common for state motor vehicle departments and colleges to use social security numbers as identification numbers on driver’s licenses and college identification cards. This was before awareness of identity fraud was widespread – although it often took many years after such awareness before some of them changed to making up their own numbers.

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HI just in the past decade or less switched from SSN as DL#. Our insurer also used SSN as ID# until very recently, and of course Medicare STILL uses SSN as ID #.

Will figure out whether or not to do a credit freeze soon. We haven’t had sny hacks–yet, but there’s so much info floating around and so many folks who want “easy $$$.”

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We froze it six years ago, not for any reason other than general fear. The demise of Bear Sterns rattled me, so even though we had been thinking about it for years, it took their downfall to prompt me to action. Have been trying to convince the grandparents to do so, as I think they are an even greater target, but no traction.

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If D were in college, i would strongly push her to freeze her credit or maybe even just do it for her. Certainly if she were in high school or younger, I’d do it without a second thought. But she’s 23 and out of college and self supporting, so I feel like that would be overstepping my bounds. I’m just presenting her with the facts and options, and making a general statement that in this interconnected cloud-based world, anyone who doesn’t take steps to protect themselves is a sitting duck. But no pressure. :slight_smile:

It wasn’t that long ago that the IRS tax booklet we got in the mail had our SSNs right there on the address label. Such innocence…

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@CT1417‌ – Have you ever needed to unfreeze it?

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@LasMa – no, but we looked into the process when debating leasing a car. Some time was spent tracking down the PIN as we had implemented the freeze a while back. Ended up buying the car, so didn’t unfreeze, but now understand the process.

I did attempt to challenge the freeze once by trying to open a Capital One card (one year of too much foreign travel…wanted to avoid the fees). They were unable to approve credit over telephone and followed up later in writing say they could not verify.

As an aside, the credit freeze did not get in the way of changing car insurance companies. It has not impacted our lives any, but we don’t have any debt. I am not really sure when a credit check is needed.

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We are also impacted by the Anthem breach. H and I put security freezes on our credit at no charge. Did the same for our over 18 kids. It seems more complicated to freeze a minor, but I am going to look in to that, too. What a pain in the rear!!

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@CT1417 We don’t have any need for new credit in the foreseeable future, so I’m not nervous about it. But just yesterday I called AT&T to set my mom up with new service because she recently moved, and they wanted her SSN. When I balked, they said they needed to run a credit check so they’d know how much to charge her for a deposit. Uh, no.

Plan B is to get her a Jitterbug plan, but now I’m remembering that Sprint ran a check on me when I signed up, to see how many lines I could have.

Landlords will often run credit checks on applicants.