Free Credit Freezes to Protect Credit Reports

Major hacks and data breaches can lead to your identity
being compromised or even stolen by online thieves. Department of Ag, Trade,
and Consumer Protection Director Michelle Reinen says new legislation will make
it easier and cheaper to protect your financial credit. 

She tells us “consumers
can place a credit freeze or security freeze on their credit report for free.
So when we talked about this in the past, it was ten dollars to each of the
credit reporting agencies to lock down your credit report from identity
thieves.”

Reinen argues that “this is the best tool that you have to combat identity theft – financial identity theft. And really protect yourself from some of these data breaches that you just don’t know what’s happening with your information.”
Reinen also says “now we have no excuses. It is free to place this freeze, and if you need to thaw it because you need a new credit card or it’s time to buy a house or a new car, and you need the loan and the mortgage – it’s free to thaw your credit report as well. There are no more costs associated with this. If you currently have one in place, it transitions to this new system.”