Freezing Credit

[jbb27885]

Does anyone have any experience with putting a freeze on your credit? Would this be harmful to my score in the long run? I have a problem with self control and applying so I'm thinking about freezing and working on the accounts that I do have but I'm going to apply for a mortgage in the next 18-24 months, would this hinder or help my cause?

[darwin_wins]

No freezing doesnt cause issues with your score. If you have a problem with self-control, freeze the reports only lenders who have let credit lines will be SPing you, HP will not work with frozen reports.

[jbb27885]

Can I remove the freeze any time I feel that I'm ready or is their a certain amount of time I'm obligated to keep it frozen?

[darwin_wins]

You can unfreeze anytime you want but there might be a fee associated with freezing so you definitely want to be careful with how many times you lift it and place it again

[MugenCivicSi83]

let's keep this discussion going. I also have the same question for other purposes. I have recently applied for and been approved for an additional 40-50K in credit. I am moving out of the country and am wondering if I freeze my accounts what impact it will have on my ability to grow my credit limits... any advice myFICO peeps?!

[Anonymous]

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@MugenCivicSi83 wrote:

let's keep this discussion going. I also have the same question for other purposes. I have recently applied for and been approved for an additional 40-50K in credit. I am moving out of the country and am wondering if I freeze my accounts what impact it will have on my ability to grow my credit limits... any advice myFICO peeps?!

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Mine are frozen and the only time it can be an issue is when you have to take a HP for CLIs. I lifted the freeze for 24 hours to allow BofA to pull and there were no issues. Your existing creditors can SP you with no problems. I'm in CA where it is $10 to lift or freeze and it is surprising how that little fee can make you think twice about apping. 

One other word of caution....make sure not to lose your unlock codes! My sister misplaced hers and it was a hell of a process to unlock her reports.

[909]

Over in the auto loan forum a member said he locked his credit before applying for an auto loan, unlocked it when they wanted to HP and then locked it to keep the dealer from doing multiple HPs. He said he did it from his phone.

How does one lock and unlock their credit? I'd prefer to keep my credit locked. Other than the fee, are there drawbacks? Do creditors updates continue to be recorded?

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

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@909 wrote:
Over in the auto loan forum a member said he locked his credit before applying for an auto loan, unlocked it when they wanted to HP and then locked it to keep the dealer from doing multiple HPs. He said he did it from his phone.

How does one lock and unlock their credit? I'd prefer to keep my credit locked. Other than the fee, are there drawbacks? Do creditors updates continue to be recorded?

Thanks.

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Your existing creditors can always SP you, though some won't update monthly FICOs. For instance, Sync won't update on my Amazon, but AMEX, Citi, BofA, and others do. 

When you freeze your reports, you generate a PIN which is needed to unlock. If you need to unfreeze, you can call or go online with your PIN. I froze my reports after an incident of identity theft, but I plan on keeping them that way. .

I've experienced no drawbacks creditwise, but here's just a couple of things that others might find irritating...

1. Although daily FICO alerts and score changes work fine on myFICO monitoring, EQ wouldn't update during my quarterly report pull due to freeze.

2. Some free sites no longer work with the freeze. Discover scorecard & Credit.com both gave errors related to the freeze.

[Anonymous]

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@jbb27885 wrote:
Does anyone have any experience with putting a freeze on your credit? Would this be harmful to my score in the long run? I have a problem with self control and applying so I'm thinking about freezing and working on the accounts that I do have but I'm going to apply for a mortgage in the next 18-24 months, would this hinder or help my cause?

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I have credit freezes on CRs with three CBs.  Some of these have already been mentioned, but ...

• If you want to put a freeze/temporary unfreeze on your CR with all three CBs, you have to do it individually with EACH CB
  • You can put a freeze with only 1, 2 or all three CB
• No affect on credit score
• It doesn't prevent lenders with whom you already have accounts with from accessing your credit info (SPs).
• It will prevent HPs.  You have to temporarily unfreeze the CRs to enable a HP.
• Depending on the state you live in, there is a fee associated with freezing/unfreezing CRs.  
  • In my state, the fee is $3 per CB - meaning I pay a total of $9 to freeze and $9 to temporarily unfreeze my CRs on all three CBs.  
  • Most states have a law that if you are a victim of fraud, this service is free (you usually have to have a police report of the fraud to get it for free).  
  • In some states, the freezing/unfreezing service is free of charge, period.  
• When you temporarily unfreeze the CRs, all three CBs allow you to specify a date to start and a end date for the temporary unfreeze
• EQ and EX willl allow you to temporarily unfreeze your CR for more than 30 days and as little as 1 day at one time.  
• TU will only allow you to temporarily unfreeze it for no more than 30 days and as little as 1 day at one time.  So you'll have to split it up and do the unfreeze more than once for periods of time longer than 30 days.
• I forget with which CB, but once the temporary unfreeze is inplace, you can not change the date. So be sure of the date.
• You do not have to call to have it re-frozen once the temporary unfreeze expires.  Once the temporary unfreeze expires, it will automatically re-freeze the CRs
• If you have subsciptions for scores, monitoring services, etc. , you may run into issues where they can't get your CR if the freeze is inplace.
  • I just put on my calendar when the monitoring service is scheduled to pull the CR and and temporarily unfreeze it a day before and after the scheduled date.  For example, if the monitoring service is schedule to pull my CRs on the 15th of the month, I unfreeze the account for the 14th through 16th.
• As far as I have been told by the CSRs at the CBAs, there is no limit to how many times in a year you can temporarily unfreeze the CRs.  

That's all I can remember for now. Hopes it helps.

[909]

Great info! Thanks.