Which One Can Shield Your Identity Better - Security Freeze or Fraud Alert?

Fraudulent attacks on your identity can cause injuries to your credit. There are two tools available to shield yourself - security freeze and fraud alert. Before selecting any one of them, you should know their comparative effectiveness.

Identity theft continues to threaten your credit and perhaps your entire financial life. Now there are nationwide laws in place to protect you. You can now apply for a security freeze or fraud alert to make your credit report secured and difficult to access for identity thieves.

A fraud alert is an easy option for you to prevent fraud. You can just call any of the credit bureaus requesting for such alert to be placed on your credit report. It will warn new creditors the possibility of identity theft on your account and would suggest them to take extra care while granting fresh credit in your favor. It is like a red flag on your report. You can make an initial request to apply fraud alert for 90 days. If you want, you can extend it up to seven years. You need not pay any fees while requesting for such an alert.

On the other hand a security freeze blocks your credit report totally. No new creditor will be able to access your report and extend you any credit on that basis. So it is highly unlikely that identity thieves will commit any new fraud with your credit report. You are required to pay a fee while requesting it, but if you are a victim of identity theft, you can do it without any charge. Such freeze can remain on your report as long as you want. If you want to remove it, you need to pay some fees again.

If you make the comparison between these two options, a fraud alert is a less effective tool. It will not stop a prospective creditor from referring to your credit report or granting you fresh credit. It will only give an indication that a creditor needs to be a bit careful and should contact you specifically before extending credit. To the contrary, a security freeze will prevent any creditor to view your report in the first place. So even if your social security number or other personal details are with identity thieves, they cannot open a new account to get new credit.

If you strongly suspect your personal details are compromised, you should go for a security freeze. It will give you peace of mind.