posted
on Thursday, November 1, 2018
in
Realtor News
It hopefully just got a little more difficult for scammers to abuse someone’s credit information, because consumers can now freeze their credit at all three of the major credit reporting agencies, for free. Last year, in the wake of the massive data breach at Equifax, which exposed the personal information of more than 145 million consumers to hackers, a push began to stop allowing the credit reporting agencies to charge to freeze someone’s
credit.
Each state has different rules around credit freezes, but in some states, it costs $10 to place a credit freeze on their account and another $10 if they want to lift the freeze. Not anymore though. Going forward, consumers can freeze their credit for free at Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian.
The change was actually put in place by the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act signed into law earlier this year. The law also allows parents to freeze their children’s credit for free (applies to children under 16), and guardians, conservators, and those with a valid power of attorney can also get a free freeze for their dependents.
Source: HousingWire