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If you placed a freeze with all three credit reporting bureaus, you’ll also need to unfreeze your credit with each bureau-either online, by phone or by mail. There are plenty of instances where you would need to “thaw” your credit: You’re applying for a credit card or insurance, buying a home or vehicle, renting a car or an apartment, establishing a new bank account, signing up for a cell phone plan or an account with a utility company, or even applying for a new job (many employers require credit checks of potential employees). Learn more about how credit freezes work. It can take up to three business days to lift the freeze, which can delay applications that require a credit check.įollowing the Equifax breach, only one in every five Americans opted to freeze their credit, according to research by Fundera.It blocks you from establishing new credit in your name until you remove or temporarily lift the freeze.While the protections offered through a freeze outweigh the inconvenience of going through the effort, it’s important to consider the potential drawbacks of freezing your credit: The security freeze doesn’t affect your credit score.It allows you to continue using existing credit cards.The freeze remains in effect until you decide when to unfreeze your credit.It lets you restrict access to your credit report, which in turn makes it more difficult for identity thieves to open new accounts in your name.The security measure offers many benefits:

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Each bureau will ask you to answer several questions to validate your identity, and you’ll receive a unique PIN code that you can use to freeze and unfreeze your credit report as needed. You’ll need to provide your name, address, birth date and social security number. You must do so separately with each of the three major credit bureaus, which also include Experian and TransUnion.

#Temporary lift security freeze equifax for free

You can now freeze your credit for free under a law that took effect following the Equifax breach. But first-a refresher on what a credit freeze does. But what if you need to “thaw” your credit to apply for a new loan, insurance, cell phone plan or something else? Here’s what you can expect when you want to unfreeze your credit. I placed a freeze on my credit with all three credit bureaus to prevent identity thieves from opening any new credit with my information.I contacted my credit card companies and requested my cards be shut down and new ones be issued.Wanting to do everything possible to protect my identity, I took a couple of proactive steps:

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Hackers accessed people’s names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license and credit card numbers. Maybe yours was, too? The breach impacted some 148 million consumers.

My personal information was exposed to hackers in the mega-Equifax data breach in 2017.