Thanks for the reply. I appreciate the valuable information you provided. I did send a dispute to Equifax yesterday so hopefully they will remove.
I am just being petty. Lol! This is my 3rd inquiry on Equifax and all 3 are NFCU. I shouldn't take it personal but the hard pull for no reason really irked me. Then when I called in and had the experience I had that was the "straw" that broke the my back.
I called all 3 bureau's and removed the fraud alert on my profile. I actually read about the fraud alert 2 or 3 years ago... I just don't remember if it was here or not. I went through a divorce and my ex got a jc pennys card in my name. Boy was I hot! They removed it from my credit report but I was furious. And when I called Pennys they said the credit line was obtained online and the purchases were online but would not divulge to me what was purchased or the address it was delivered to. They claimed that if it is fraud and I retaliated then they could he held liable. What?!?!?! That just made it worse. You're charging me for something that you won't tell me what it is or where it was delivered?!?!?! Anyways I was able to get them to remove the account.
But I started reading about protecting my credit. There is the "freeze" and the "fraud alert" that is used mostly by active duty military (but anyone can ask for it). All it says is to prevent fraud please call my number before granting or extending credit. I have gotten disco, amex, chase and nfcu plat card and cloc. All with the alert. They just call me and verify my identity and say yes or no. I haven't been denied yet accept for the cli from nfcu. I received cli from kohls and Victoria secret after they called to verify.
I think the only problem with an alert is you will not receive auto increases.
Now I don't have the alerts on my reports but I have them froze. I am not sure if I can get cli's with them being froze but I don't mind as long as nobody can get credit in my name.
