I’m Allie Wadley, Director of Credit Operations at NDBT and this episode of our Credit Education Series is about locking your credit profile.
A credit freeze, also known as a security freeze, is a tool designed to help protect you from fraud and identity theft. It limits access to your credit report unless you lift the freeze, or “thaw” your credit. Having a freeze in place won’t affect your credit scores, but it will keep your credit report from being accessed to calculate scores unless you first lift the freeze.
The major drawback of credit freezes is that, along with limiting unauthorized credit applications, they also limit authorized checks. This can complicate legitimate applications for loans, credit cards and other things because you’ll need to lift your credit freeze on your file before the process can move forward.
Contact each individual credit reporting company to place a freeze on your credit profile.
Be sure to view the other topics in our video series to keep yourself credit aware.
