Last month, news broke that hackers stole and sold personal records of 2.9 billion people. The records were stolen from a company called National Public Data which provides services to staffing agencies, employers, private investigators, and other organizations who perform background checks. This apparently places a vast majority of people who live in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom at greater risk for fraud and identity theft. Also, while this was perhaps the largest data breach of personal records, there are countless other data breaches that have likely resulted in your personal data being released to the dark web. To protect yourself, here’s what most experts recommend.
1. Set up accounts at all 3 major credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. While all 3 credit bureaus offer security products and services, setting up an account is free. Remember to safely store your username and password information (that is perhaps the topic of another blog post).
2. Check your credit report from all 3 major credit bureaus. If you’re not accustomed to doing this, the key things to look for are the accuracy of your contact information, revolving lines of credit, and inquiries. If a criminal has attempted to open up credit cards, take out a loan, or change your home address, you should immediately spot those. In the unfortunate event that someone has tried to steal your identity, follow the steps at IdentityTheft.gov.
3. Place a fraud alert on all 3 major credit bureaus. This will make it harder for a criminal to obtain credit in your name because businesses must verify your identity before issuing credit in your name—note that this is why it is important to verify your contact information in item 2 above. All 3 credit bureaus offer fraud alerts for free, and it lasts a year, after which you can renew it (also free). If you were a victim of identity theft and have a police report, you can place an extended fraud alert which will last for 7 years.
4. Place a credit freeze on all 3 major credit bureaus. This provides even greater security than a fraud alert because when your credit is frozen, nobody will be able to access your credit report or open a new credit account until your account with the specific credit reporting bureau is unfrozen (or “thawed”). Like all the other steps above, credit freezes are also free, and they remain in place until you thaw your account. Note that when you thaw your account, you do not necessarily need to thaw all 3 credit bureaus. Let’s say you want to buy a car, and the dealer wants to check your credit before issuing you a loan—if you know which credit bureau they use, you can temporarily thaw that one and then freeze it again after you complete your transaction. Also visit this FTC site to read about differences between fraud alerts and credit freezes.
5. Optionally place a credit lock on all 3 major credit bureaus. I say this is optional becuase the differences between freezing and locking your credit are minor. According to NerdWallet, freezing your credit usually occur within 1 business day and thawing occurs within 1 hour if done online, while locking and unlocking occur instantaneously. Although Equifax offers locking/unlocking for free, Experian and TransUnion charge a fee for this service. If you value the convenience of instant locking/unlocking and are willing to pay the fees (if any), then this may be a desirable option. Otherwise with just a little bit of planning, you can skip this step and achieve all 4 prior steps for free.
One last word on Equifax credit locks. As I mentioned above, Equifax offers credit locks for free, and this is done through its Lock & Alert service. Just note that if you sign up for Lock & Alert, you will need to register with another account that is separate from your “regular” Equifax account where you check your credit report, place fraud alerts, and freeze/thaw your account. I don’t know why they don’t just combine them together, but just note when storing your account information that these are 2 separate accounts. If you’re an Apple user like me and use iCloud to store your passwords, note that there seems to be a limitation where iCloud tries to be helpful by merging these 2 accounts because they have similar domain names. Do NOT overwrite your “regular” Equifax username/password with your Equifax Lock & Alert username/password or you will lose one of them. Hopefully Apple will come up with a solution for this scenario soon.
