Freezing Credit

[joeyoey]

I was just wndering about other member's experience with having their reports frozen & thawed.  I'm an Anthem member & even though I haven't "officially" heard from them that my information has been compromised, it's worried the "h-e-double hocky sticks" out of me for the past week.

My credit is pretty much where I want it right now.  My scores still have a ways to go but I'm 100% content with the cards I have now & have no plans to open up anything else in the near future (maybe a Freedom card later in the year & possibly a car late next year).

Are there any drawbacks to having everything frozen?  Does this affect me being able to check things on KC (where I check weekly) &/or MyFico (where I usually pull a 3 bureau report about every 90 days)?  Does this affect my relationships with current credit issuers?  I know that many banks (esp AMEX & Chase) do frequest softpulls to see how you're doing overall, will this affect that &/or will they still be able to see what they need to on a regular basis so they can offer CLIs, etc?  How easy (& fast) can things be unfrozen when I need to?

Thanks for any advice.  Hopefully I'm overreacting but they're saying upwards of 80 million people might be affected.  The way my luck runs, I'm probably one of them.  haha

[Anonymous]

The only downside to freezing your reports if you want to apply for new credit and it can be a bit of a hassle but all you need to do is provide a PIN to the potential creditor so that they can do a hard inquiry on you.

It does not affect CK or your ability to pull credit scores here.  Your creditors and others can still do soft  inquiries on you at anytime.  They still have access to do that.  It's mainly done to prevent others from opening credit in your name because it blocks hard inquiries from being done without your authorization.

[Anonymous]

+1

[Anomalous]

I have all three of my cr frozen. I have not had any issues with current creditors accessing my information. The only creditor who makes reference to it is Capital One when I log on the app to check my FAKO score when it's updated.

I just purchased a new 3B report on myFICO and had no issues at all. I still get my alerts also. 

So yeah, your prior relationships with creditors before freezing your reports doesn't prevent them from SPing you, but if they require a HP for anything (like CLIs) then you'll have to unthaw them.

To freeze and unfreeze your reports are fairly easy. You just log in or call whichever bureau and use your pin to do so. If you're lucky, like myself, you live in a state where there isn't a fee to utlize the security freeze options.

Hope this helps. If I left anything out, I'm sure someone else will chime in.