TransUnion to Offer Credit Freezes Nationwide

An anonymous reader writes "In a little-noticed press release issued Tuesday, credit reporting bureau TransUnion said it would begin offering credit freezes to all Americans, a change the belies the credit industry's oft-uttered claim that doing so would be too expensive and burdensome. The program takes effect Oct. 15, 2007, will cost $10 each to place and to remove, and request and must be filed by certified mail. As The Washington Post reports, the move comes as some 39 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws entitling their residents to credit freeze rights. The new right may have little benefit unless the other two major credit reporting bureaus follow suit, and both companies are staying mum about any plans to do so. In May, Slashdot examined a related story on the credit bureaus' traditional resistance to freeze laws."

So what they really mean

[TubeSteak]

Is that it costs them less than $10 to freeze or unfreeze your credit.

What I'm curious about is the certified mail [usps.com]
It doesn't prove anything about the sender, merely that it got received.

Re:Too lazy...

[Anonymous Coward]

It means that someone, who has an infinitely larger amount of knowledge about that industry than any Slashdotter, has figured out that they can make the same amount of profit off of the same amount of data while still allowing a percentage of their data generating population to entertain a false sense of fairness/security in the system by saying,"Oh, good, I can freeze my credit report with agency XYZ. That solves _EVERYTHING_!"

It's a PR move made by extraordinarily wealthy people trying to shore up their public image.

Simply put all of the conventional wisdom about freezing credit reports, and all of the hyporthetical armchair conjecture about identity thieves, and all of the poster children who pop up in news articles and brochures saying,"I froze my credit and, not only did it save my life, but it walked my dog, buttered my toast, and installed Gentoo for me!" are a decoy. Nobody knows the inner business workings or dealings of the major credit bureaus at the executive level and the credit bureaus, along with the executive level members of the banking institutions which they work with, like it that way. They'll keep offering you bread and circuses ("You can now freeze your credit report" "OMG! That's going to totally revolutionize the economic system and make all of the executive level fraud, insider trading and political graft suddenly disappear!") as long as the American public continues to generate profit and support their multibillion dollar facade.

Truth hurts. Cue the whimpering cries from trolls screaming "where's the evidence!" in agony. :)

Re:So what they really mean

[Copid]

What I'm curious about is the certified mail
It doesn't prove anything about the sender, merely that it got received.

One possible reason is to prevent people from claiming that they froze their records after something goes wrong and then trying to blame TransUnion. TransUnion can simply say, "If you sent it, you must have done it via certified mail, so you have the records to prove that it was our mistake, right? No? Then go away." Of course, one would think that a canceled check or record of a credit card payment would be enough to prove that the transaction took place.

Re:Pulling Credit Reports

[lena_10326]

If I login and agree to pay $10, then they'll grant me access to the information, no questions asked.

I have to presume they would check the name and account number on your credit card and see if it matches any accounts in your report, which would offer 1 more hurdle of security by requiring you to have physical possession of the card (they always ask for CVV2 code).

Re:So what they really mean

[llamalad]

I think that $10 is entirely unacceptable.

They've been making money by keeping information about me, and now they want ME to pay them to STOP?

Ridiculous.

Re:The Problem with credit freezes

[westlake]

I don't plan on getting credit until I purchase a house.

Why should a lender trust you to repay the $60K loan - the $100K loan - when you have no history of managing debt on a much smaller scale?

The mortgage market is getting very tight for borrowers who can't demonstrate that they have both the experience and the resources to meet their commitments.

Re:So what they really mean

[lena_10326]

Well, I look at it this way. Credit bureaus do provide a desired service for lenders and borrowers. Without a credit history, you would get the same ho-hum homogenized rate everyone else gets. When you have good credit, the credit bureaus are a service to you so they deserve to be paid that. When you open an account, you're initiating that service via the lender.

But, I completely agree with you with the passive credit pulls. We don't request those, but we do have regulation to block those with the 1-888-5-OPT-OUT service.

The problem is credit bureaus don't have enough regulation for requests we don't invoke. They only care about the lenders, not us, so that causes them to be extremely sloppy with handling our data, keeping error rates low, and providing us better service when fixing errors and controlling who accesses our history. The sloppiness of credit bureaus is the #1 cause of identify theft, so they are truly to blame. Federal regulation and punitive fines could put an end to it, but that's due to politicians simply ignoring our demands in preference for the lobbyists (and free gifts).

I simply don't have issues with credit files in of themselves. Just the management of them.

new income stream

[mmeister]

these guys are just looking for a new income stream.

Are they taking responsibility for the fact they give you sensitive information which might compromise your identity? No. Instead, they say for $10 per transaction (freeze/unfreeze), you can do it.

Welcome to the new corrupt America where we are all treated like some kind of cash machine, be it from corporations or gov't agencies.

What's to stop a thief from lifting it?

[zymurgy_cat]

From the article:

To place a freeze with TransUnion, consumers will need to submit a request via certified mail, but they will be able to lift it via regular mail or by telephone.

Uh, isn't this backwards? It takes certified mail to issue the stop, but only a phone call to lift it? That's like saying it takes a key, password, and retina scan to shut down your computer but nothing else to turn it on. What's to stop a determined identity thief from lifting the freeze with a phone call?

So much fuss, so little problem.

[seebs]

The whole problem with identity theft and abuse would be so very easy to fix.

1. By law, make it the creditor's problem to prove that charges or credit requests were legitimate.
2. Preemptively invalidate absolutely ALL contract terms, agreements, or otherwise, which shift this burden. Period.

If there were an economic incentive for security, banks would be secure.

Right now, citibank employees will tell you to enter information about your accounts on the web site in "that email" if it has their logo. They don't know what sites are theirs or not. Paypal sends stuff out that comes from "x.com" -- try explaining THAT one to someone who's not aware of their history. Why? Because it's mostly not their problem.

Re:Confused...

[sowth]

How can this be? You need a registered letter to freeze the account, yet a telephone call from your identity thief will "thaw" your account within 15 minutes and allow him/her to run wild with your credit again...

I don't see how this will do anything to slow or stop this kind of fraud.

Re:Tell TransUnion what you think of their new pla

[Lehk228]

100,000 emails with "Eh..." in them would do more.

Re:The Problem with credit freezes

[dargaud]

The way the US loan system works has always seemed absurd to me: it's easier to get a loan if you have always been in debt than if you have always have a clean debt-free life. Doesn't make any sense.

Re:Confused...

[Zigg]

I'm not terribly pleased with the inner workings of the credit-granting industry either, but it seems to me it'd make the most business sense to grant credit to people who care about protecting their own report. Therefore, someone who carefully freezes and thaws their own report would seem to me to be less of a credit risk.

heading off state laws

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just a ploy to stop more states from passing freeze laws. In Ohio, they wanted $10 with the proposed freeze law. Everyone is screaming that's too much and to make it $2 or free.

They really need sued.

Re:The Problem with credit freezes

[Siberwulf]

Good for him. Too bad the credit agencies don't agree.

Re:The Problem with credit freezes

[dargaud]

If you've never handled a bunch of cash someone else gave you, how can I trust you'll be good with mine?

If it was only about this, then it should be enough to show your monthly salary ('cash someone else gives you') and that you have no outstanding debt. QED. And it's exactly how it works in europe: there's no such thing as this credit reporting bureau bullshit. You are right, they want to squeeze you like a lemon, and not necessarily make sure you can pay back your loan properly. Otherwise why would they offer things like 2nd or 3rd mortgage ? After you fail payment, they move in, grab the loot and make even more this way. Or that's the way I understand it and I stay away from those guys at all costs.

Re:So what they really mean

[ucblockhead]

Very true. But I'd rather have my credit frozen as a prank than have someone get a credit card in my name after unfreezing my account.