Everything You Need To Know About Credit Freeze

There are times when you get worried about hackers who might misappropriate your personal information. We’re not only talking about names, credit card numbers, or personal addresses being passed on to some other source. Aside from these, you can have your debit or credit card compromised, too. Would you let your private information be jeopardized like that?

These are crucial times when you need to apply a credit freeze on your personal reports. But before that, you need to know what actually credit freeze is. Let’s find out:

What Exactly Is Credit Freeze?

Credit freeze allows you to control how agencies sell your data

When you are applying for credit – may it be an auto loan, credit card, mortgage, or some other – the lender will try to pull your credit report out to ascertain your reliability and ability as a borrower. A credit freeze is the best way to stave the lender off from extracting your credit report. Whenever a lender makes an effort to extract a credit report that is frozen, a message is delivered to the lender, indicating that it’s a frozen report.

If you are the bona fide owner of the concerned credit report, you will possess a pin number that will arm you with the capability to permanently thaw or temporarily unfreeze your report if you wish to provide access to the lender. Do keep in mind that if an individual asking for a credit is not competent enough to thaw the credit report, the lender will easily realize that it’s probably a swindler or a defrauder.

Why Exactly Would You Use A Credit Freeze?

Prevent data breach by opting for credit freeze

For your knowledge, freezing your credit report is one of the most effective measures you can execute to act against the menaces of identity theft. Breaching of data and information can lead to an identity takeover. This implies that others could be buying cars, applying for mortgages, and opening credit cards all in your name, and one fine day, you will find the debtors standing at your doorstep for purchases you never even made. A credit freeze makes it a lot tougher for thieves to utilize your personal information in outrageous ways.

Your Present Credit Lines Will Be Valid

Even if you freeze your credit reports, your present credit lines won’t be affected. You can still access your credit cards, student loan, and auto loan and all will be intact as they are; your mortgage will be in its proper position, too. But, if you wish to alter existing credit lines, for example, going for an increase in your credit limit or refinancing your debt in case of a student loan, you might require unfreezing your credit reports in order to grant your lenders  access to them.

You Are Eligible To Extract Your Credit Reports

You can still get your credit reports

Don’t worry, freezing your credit reports doesn’t necessarily mean that you won’t be able to access them. You can still extract your credit reports. After detecting and checking any hiccups or irregularities here and there, you will definitely get an idea of your report.

Your Credit Score Doesn’t Get Negatively Affected

Freezing your credit report will not affect your credit score negatively because your recent credit lines will get reported anyway. So, no need to worry at all!

You Can Definitely Maintain And Further Improve Your Credit Score

Improve your credit score gradually

The first method to improving your credit score is by making timely payments each and every month. The second way is by keeping the amount of credit on the credit cars that you use low and good. If you ask the ideal mark, it’s less than the 30% mark every month. If you keep taking the proper steps, you will automatically observe big-time improvements in your credit score.

In a nutshell, all you need to do to prevent any information breach or identity theft is to freeze your credit reports. Otherwise, there would be transactions and purchases on your name, and debtors will eventually come for you. You might be apprehensive about the impact it can have on your credit score but, worry not as it’s not much. Rather you can better your score by keeping your credit within limits. And always remember if you don’t freeze your credit report, you may come across as a fraudster to the lender, and that might hamper your prospects of getting a loan. Just be safe and take care of your monetary prospects.