topic Re: Experian Freeze issues in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Experian Freeze issues

wwalter2718 — Mon, 21 May 2018 16:04:57 GMT

First of all, please move this to the correct subforum if this isn't it....

I placed a freeze on all 3 CRAs in the fall of 2017. Then a couple days ago, I requested a temporary lift from 5/23/18 to 6/6/18 for TU and Experian. Today, 5/21/18, I started receiving notifications of hard pulls on Experian. I had made some CLI requests, etc. that I expected to either do a soft pull or to fail if they required a hard pull (which would have been fine with me.) Apparently Experian lifted the freeze 2 days early and now I have 2 hits I didn't expect. I have not been successful in reaching anybody at Experian; they're *extremely* effective at avoiding customer service...

What's my best next step?

Thanks in advance...

Re: Experian Freeze issues

HeavenOhio — Mon, 21 May 2018 16:44:07 GMT

Welcome, @wwalter2718.

I believe that existing lenders can do hard or soft pulls, freeze or no freeze, although some might request that a freeze be lifted.

This doesn't help you, but I happened to have assistance from an excellent rep at Experian when I locked my report and found I had no way to unlock it. He had me unlocked in a matter of a couple of minutes.

Just to note, forum rules prohibit us from discussing locks or freezes as a way to manipulate pulls for credit decisions. I don't think that's what you were trying to do, though, particularly because you were looking for the freeze to be lifted. We're definitely allowed to discuss locks and freezes as a means to enhance overall security.

Re: Experian Freeze issues

wwalter2718 — Mon, 21 May 2018 17:01:19 GMT

Thank you for understanding that my freezes (at all 3 majors) were only for security purposes and were placed just after the Equifax disaster last year.

I also intended to lift all 3 for the same 2-week period, but Equifax never sent me a PIN, as far as I can tell, so I couldn't lift the freeze there without snail-mailing a bunch of documents... Gonna leave that one frozen for life, quite possibly, and just avoid doing business with anyone who needs my Equifax rpt.

I'm fairly sure I've asked for CLIs from Amex while frozen x 3 and had no hard pull. But now I do... 8-(

Guess my understanding of a freeze was imperfect.

Thanks for the quick & helpful response.

Re: Experian Freeze issues

wwalter2718 — Mon, 21 May 2018 17:21:23 GMT

BTW, I'm lifting the freeze not so that I can incur some more HPs, but so that (hopefully) the identity questions that come up when I attempt to open a checking account start making sense again, rather than seeming to come from some parallel universe... Maybe that's Lexis-Nexis?