Working on my plan to reach 800+ (from ~750). What do you think? Did I miss something?

[calyx]

^^ Yes, Freeze and Lock are largely the same (ease of use, legislative backing for freezes).
They will largely prevent access to your reports (again, barring preexisting relationship).
They will not stop a new account from reporting (as was claimed in an earlier post).

[Anonymous]

@calyx
Think you misread what I wrote? I didn’t say it would prevent a new account from being reported to credit bureaus. I said no new account could be Opened with freeze/lock or fraud alert. That’s the point of all of this prevent accounts that do not belong to you from being reported to your credit report. Let’s use Apple Credit Card as an example by Goldman Sachs. I had soft pull done with credit reports locked. Then I received offer for Apple credit card while my credit reports were locked. Since I did this & I had no previous relationship with Goldman Sachs only Apple. I accepted offer for Apple credit card which is when they should have done a hard inquiry on my credit report. It was attempted but lock I had on blocked it & I saw the attempt. I got Apple credit card been using it for 3 going on 4 months. Still no hard inquiry for Apple credit card but Goldman Sachs on any credit report. Yes they might report account to credit bureaus when & if Goldman Sachs does that right now they have not for 3 months going on 4 months. Since it’s my account I am using that’s fine if they report it. If it was not me who opened the account & fake Apple ID had been created with my info to apply & accept offer of Apple credit card by stranger not me. Then I would have a problem if it began reporting to credit bureaus as my account that was 4 months old & I had no idea even existed. This is where I see a issue with existing laws/rules of lock, freeze, fraud alert for 3 credit bureaus & Apple Credit Card by Goldman Sachs. I do not want accounts that do not belong to me that are months old being reported retroactive to my credit report. Then effecting my credit report & credit score not being done by me. If this happens with anyone because Apple credit card is not reporting to credit bureaus but might in the future. I think it would reflect poorly on Apple & Goodman Sachs. The point of any lock, freeze, fraud alert is to prevent & catch Identiy theft problems before they happen. To avoid having to fix them after they happened. New accounts shouldn’t be able to be opened in my name with a lock, freeze, fraud alert & reported you my credit report with 3 credit bureaus.

[Anonymous]

SkyAmazon That is absolutely incorrect that you cannot have any new accounts with a freeze. The effect of a lock and a freeze are exactly the same as far as access goes.

New accounts may be reported while your credit report is locked or frozen. It only prevents hard inquiries that’s it.

As for ease and convenience as I said before it’s extremely easy to freeze and unfreeze. I can do it in less than a minute unless I do not have an Internet connection.

[calyx]

Freeze/lock doesn't actually prevent an account being opened.
It does limit access to your reports, so the likelihood of someone extending credit is slim to non.  
Even cards like Opensky that don't hard pull your credit still perform soft pulls to verify your identity (and would therefore need access).
In addition, companies you already have relationships with can access your report, so theoretically they could still soft pull you to open an account.   For example - my CU softpulls when you want a new product with them, and they were totally able to do it through my freeze.

[Anonymous]

Yes I’ve added new accounts through both freezes and locks.

[Anonymous]

Yes freezes and locks do not stop soft inquiries. However a lender is not supposed to softpull you unless they have an existing relationship, unless they are doing it for promotional purposes. In other words they can pull a batch of files by soft inquiry that meet a certain criteria and then send you offers, IIRC.

[Anonymous]

SkyAmazon I missed post 54. Yes I agree with you that a lock or a freeze it would be nice if it prevented new accounts but it does not and that’s not what it was designed to do. It was designed to prevent hard inquiries only because a lender who extends credit to you without doing a hardpull, well that’s just not very wise, because it can come back to bite them in the butt.

For instance if Apple opened up an account fraudulently in your name, who do you think would end up having to wear it? GS.

You may go through heck yourself but they’ll be the one to pay the fraudulent charges.

[Anonymous]

This is off topic for post. How do members get credit score & credit cards to show up on here at the bottom of what they post as comments on a post? See it on lots of members not found how to do it yet myself. Might help others understand me better if they see more about my credit score and credit usage:

[Anonymous]

Look under smorgasbord there’s a post for badges and cards

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Your average age, once it reaches seven years eight months, anything beyond that doesn’t help you either, so there’s not a point in having an average age of 20 or 30 years; it serves no purpose unless you want to go on a spree of 10 cards and still have a high average age.

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I've been gone lately and honestly not keeping up; however, did we concretely prove that via experimentation or was it the simple expedient of finding someone with an 850 score at 7 years 8 months?

There is a bunch of evidence for a buffer north of 850, and ostensibly a higher AAOA value could contribute to the increased size of that buffer which admitteldy has some value.

To be fair, until the required scores for anything go north of 760 I'm not particularly worried about anything north of 5 years AAOA personally; however, having a buffer is important if life changes and suddenly I have to beat my credit like a rented mule.