Why YSK: Locking your credit with the main 3 places is not enough.

https://innovis.com/ have grown enough to require locking as providers are using them as a single check source.

There’s also https://www.chexsystems.com/ which many banks use for opening checking accounts. They’re unique because they handle accounts that don’t show up in a credit report.

  • Doombot1@lemmy.one
    1·
    3 months ago

    Fun fact: you can’t lock your credit through Innovis if the name on your phone number isn’t the same as your real name (for instance, I’m on my mother’s phone plan - I still have my own number, but I guess it’s under her name). I ran into this issue literally four days ago :/

    • Shirasho@lemmings.world
      1·
      3 months ago

      Your credit, which is a fancy name for the profile that financial companies build on you to determine whether you are able to pay back loans. When you apply for a credit card, get a loan, rent an apartment, or buy a car, the seller will look at your credit to determine whether you are a risk of not paying and will use this info to set interest rates and payment plans.

      Locking your credit means preventing these financial institutions from releasing your financial information to people who request it. This will prevent malicious actors from opening lines of credit in your name, but it will also prevent you from doing so as well.

      Unfortunately in the US we can’t tell a single entity that we do not want this information released. We need to inform multiple entities not to release this info since they are all independent.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
      1·
      3 months ago

      In order to open a line of credit (credit card or loan), the lender will pull your credit record to determine your creditworthiness. The “big three” credit record companies being referenced are Transunion, Equifax, and Experian. Based on your credit “score” with one or more of those reporting agencies, the lender will approve or decline your request to borrow, and determine the interest rate they’ll charge you.

      “Locking your credit” means telling those reporting agencies, “Hey, don’t let anyone pull my credit.” Why would you want to do that? Because of identity theft. If someone gets enough information about you, they can borrow money using your identity, and never pay it back. This situation is a fucking nightmare.

      By locking your credit, you gain a huge amount of control over anyone - including yourself - from borrowing from a lender. Each credit reporting agency offers this option, at no charge, and the lock can be temporarily or permanently lifted by you (login, 2FA, sometimes you can even specify a specific lender who is allowed to pull your credit while continuing to forbid anyone else).

      It is highly recommended to lock your credit. Frankly, it should be locked by default. In September of 2017, Equifax announced a data breach that exposed the personal information of 147 million people. That’s essentially everyone in America who can take out a loan.

      OP’s post indicates that there are at least two lesser-known reporting agencies that you should look into to secure your credit reports.