Identity theft and cyber hacking are on the rise.
Luckily, there are some steps you can take to protect your credit against fraudulent activity or theft. Let’s discuss two options you may have.
Security freeze
A security freeze is when you actually freeze your credit report. A credit freeze disables access for anyone to your credit report. No bank, lender, or consumer can access your report while it’s frozen.
You can view your report even if it’s frozen for others, and you can unfreeze your credit to give someone access.
Fraud alert
Another option you may go with is a fraud alert. When you place a fraud alert on your credit report, anyone who pulls your credit will be alerted to take extra steps of precaution before lending credit to you. Because if indeed there is a fraudster at play applying for credit lines in your name, the fraud alert will make the lender verify who is behind the application, and deny the fraudster any new credit.
The downside is that when you apply for credit, you will also have to go through the extra identity verification.