Automatic Fraud Alerts?

[trumpet-205]

Frozen credit report stops people from taking a look at your credit report, except lenders who you have relationship with or credit monitoring services.

Fraud alert does NOT stop people from peeking your credit report. All it does is advise whoever is reading your credit report to verify your identity. When lenders see this most of them will do identity check in attempt to thwart identity thief, if there is one.

If someone gets a hold of your information and wants to pull your credit report, fraud alert does not stop them from doing so.

Therefore you should only use fraud alert if you are a victim to identity thief. Otherwise freeze your credit report to stop any potential thief.

PS: The 90 days temporary fraud alert is there to give you time to file a police report, not for you to keep renewing the fraud alert. Don't abuse it.

[youdontkillmoney]

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@john398 wrote:

That could exclude you from get pre-screened offers, not sure if you like those or not though

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^^^
I had it on my reports. WHat happens is the creditor calls you to confirm you are who you are. It is a little hassle, but sometimes the creditor does not call since they may not see the note, buy 90% of the time they do and call. I always got the credit I needed after they call me to verify my ID. Every 90 days I renew on the phone with Transunion and transunion notifies the other credit bureaus automatically. If you do not apply for credit, then you just have to remember to renew every 90 days. If you do apply for credit, a little inconvenienced with the wait to verify your ID.

I since stopped doing the 90 day fraud alerts since I have LIfelock and I get notified whenever someone tries to open credit in my name, everytime I apply, I get the notification.

If you are high risk for some reason, go ahead and put 90 day fraud alerts and if you feel you are not high risk anymore, don't renew them.