As you may recall, as the current identity theft drama materialized, a fraud specialist at Experian recommended placing a “security freeze” on my accounts at all three credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Since she sounded like she knew what she was doing, I went ahead and did that.
And know what she was doing, she certainly did.
Yesterday, after having spent the entire day trying to reach a human at Social Security by way of rerouting my direct-deposited SS checks to the new credit-union account, I finally stumbled upon a live person, late in the afternoon. I’d tried to register myself with SS’s online site and failed, so called a “Help Line” tech — instead of the hour and fifteen-minute wait to reach a human at SS’s main phone number, it only took about ten minutes for this woman to surface.
She said the reason I couldn’t register online at Social Security is the security freezes I set up at the credit bureaus: The government’s site checks with credit bureaus before allowing just anyone to claim they’re you and get online as you.
I said, “So, now I’ve got to go to these bureaus and undo all these security freezes before I can get my check?”
Actually, I was so upset, so frustrated, and so scared that at least one and probably two or three checks are not gonna reach me that I started to cry.
She said no, she could manually enter credit union’s routing number and new account number, which she (purportedly) proceeded to do. Let’s hope she succeeded!
She then said having a credit-bureau security freeze is a good thing, because it goes a long way to prevent identity thieves from hacking into the Social Security Administration disguised as you, even if they have your SS number. Although it doesn’t protect you from all forms of identity theft, it goes far enough toward blocking credit-card and Social Security fraud that she suggested keeping it on the credit bureau accounts permanently.
Consumer’s Union, which has been among those lobbying for security freeze laws, points out that a security freeze costs you a one-time fee of just a few dollars or, in some cases, nothing — credit “monitoring” is an ongoing fee-based service — and it’s more effective because it proactively prevents anyone from opening an account without your permission. All credit monitoring does is notify you after the barn door has been opened.
A security freeze is different from a fraud alert, which you can also establish with the credit bureaus. A fraud alert tells creditors that you have alerted the credit bureau of possible fraud but does not prevent them from viewing your records. A security freeze prevents prospective creditors, insurance companies, and employers running background checks from seeing your credit file unless you give your consent.
And that is a very, very large benefit when it comes to protecting your privacy! It’s huge.
The trade-off is a degree of inconvenience: for you to open a new credit instrument (such as a credit card, a car loan, or a mortgage), you have to go to all three credit-union sites and jump through the telephone punch-a-button hoops to enter a PIN and lift the freeze long enough to get your transaction through. Then you have to go back and punch buttons again to reinstate the security freeze.
This is not very difficult, though. And not difficult at all compared to the enormous hassle and grief occasioned by an identity theft. On average, most people have to spend 40 hours cleaning up the mess created when some crook opens a credit account in their names.
The credit freeze does not affect your credit score. You still can get your annual credit reports for free. Your existing creditors (and their collection agencies…) can still view your credit files. And the credit freeze does not stop nuisance “pre-approved” credit-card offers from showing up in the mail or by phone.
There are some kinds of fraud the credit freeze does not guard against. For example, the increasingly popular income tax fraud — whereby the hacker fills out a fake income tax return and has a tax refund sent to the address of his choice — is outside the purview of this device. Obviously, if someone steals your credit or debit card, he can rack up some bills (or, with a debit card, drain your bank account and credit reserve). But for anything where a credit search is required, this tool is very valuable.
The State of California has a law that gives you a right to put a security freeze on your credit records. The state’s Web page describing the security freeze is worth bookmarking — it not only explains the process and how to install a freeze, it gives you tools for recovering a PIN should you lose it.
Consumer’s Union recommends that you protect yourself with a security freeze if you’ve learned that your Social Security number has been compromised in a security breach, if your mail has been stolen, if you’ve already had an incident of identity theft, if you’re in the particularly vulnerable age group of 18 to 24, or if you have to carry around a card (like a Medicare card) bearing your SS number.
* * *
Arriving at this knowledge was a freaking nightmare, I’ll tellya. Yesterday devolved into a true day from Hell.
I showed up at the Social Security office in search of a live human right when they opened: 9 a.m. Three parking spots remained in the lot, and one of them was a disabled space. The line to get past the security guard was out the door.
Fortunately, I’d brought my computer so I could work on a client’s book. Took a number and sat in the only open seat that had a little room around it.
There was a reason for that: in front of me were two street people. The woman was high on some sort of drug — in the course of her endless droning conversation with her pal, she remarked that she was taking an extra-heavy dose of oxycodone. The man smelled bad.
Between this woman’s nonstop babbling and the guy’s stink, I couldn’t focus on my work. Finally another seat opened up across the room and I was able to dodge into it before another customer could beat me out.
So I sat there for an hour and a half!
To no avail: at 10:30 I had to leave to go to a real appointment. Thence to La Maya’s house for lunch. By then I was so rattled I carried a bottle of wine over there for a house gift…i.e., as the day’s drug of choice.
La Maya doesn’t drink much, but in due time La Bethulia showed up, fresh from a job interview that sounded extremely promising. So between the two of us we consumed about 4/5 of the bottle.
Back at the Funny Farm, the telephone awaited. After first trying to get through on the Social Security web page, I did have the luck to reach the CSR described above and, with any luck (please, God!!) got my checks routed to the new checking account.
Meanwhile, the magazine writing students had posted their final papers: 15 of those also awaited. Read papers until about 9:00 p.m., at which point I fell face-forward into the sack.
In all this flailing around, I forgot to plug in the lights I hung in the trees to try to protect them from the frost. So the lime tree will probably lose about a third of its canopy. Still…at 6 this morning, before sunrise, it wasn’t cold enough to destroy the oranges, I don’t think.
Thank heaven for small mercies.
🙄
This post was kindly included in the Carnival of Personal Finance at Money Life and More.
The process and fees may vary by state, but in GA I am able to unlock all 3 credit companies online with only having to fill out 2 or 3 pages for each one. Including paying the 3 dollar fee for each one with a credit card. The hardest part is trying to remember where I stored the pin numbers. Takes less than 5 minutes each. You can do a temporary “Thaw” for up to 30 days for 2 of the 3 services and the other one is up to a year. Don’t remember which one is which. I did a thaw last week prior to going car shopping and had no troubles when we went to talk financing.
Wait, what…in some other state people are sane??? Evidently you’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy! 😉
Or in Arizona. Here you have to do a telephone punch-a-button hoop jump for each credit bureau. The hoop-jump to engage the security freeze was actually very easy. And I’m hoping that, as long as one has one’s PIN handy (and wrote it down correctly…), the disengage process should be equally simple.
Surely DO hope so.