Lock or Freeze Reports & Preapprovals

[17NewBeginning]

Hello all,

Can someone please tell me if you can only lock your report if you subscribe with each individual credit bureau?  And, if your report is locked or frozen, do you still receive preapprovals for other credit cards?  I was subscribed to each CB just so I can lock my report, in  order to prevent unauthorized hard inquiries, but that is pretty costly.  Is there a cheaper way to do this?

Thanks in advance

[RobertEG]

Is your goal only to block the so-called promotional inquiries?

If so, you only need to opt-out.

That is free.

[17NewBeginning]

No sir. My goal is to prevent any unauthorized inquiries and new credit being opened without my knowledge.

[AverageJoesCredit]

I pay for TU credit monitoring and can lock and unlock my report at will. Ive noticed a recent new addition that you can also lock and unlock your equifax as well. Since i have my Eq frozen by itself, im unable to access this new feature but its not a bad feature. In the end its probably cheaper just to put indivual freezes so that you only unfreeze if you really need to app. IMO

[17NewBeginning]

Thanks!