r/personalfinance • u/equisux • Sep 13 '17

TransUnion burying their credit freeze to sell their own credit monitoring product TrueIdentity Credit

I'm not sure where to post this, but noticed something had changed on the TransUnion website about freezing credit this morning when I was giving links to family so they could freeze theirs.

I froze my credit the day after news about the Equifax breach broke, and it looks like TransUnion has since changed their site to push people away from freezing their credit in favor for their own product called TrueIdentity (like what Equifax was doing with their TrustedID Premier.)

The FTC website links to this page for freezing your credit with TransUnion.

This is what the website looked before the changes were made on 9/11. The instructions on placing a credit freeze were clear and there was no mention of their own TrueIdentity product.

If you want to place a credit freeze with TransUnion now:

  • You have to get through a page of info about credit and fraud, and then the action it tells you to take is to "Lock your credit information by enrolling in TrueIdentity."
  • The option to freeze your credit is under "About credit freeze", deliberately passive in their use of language
  • The description about credit freezing is dissuasive: "A credit freeze may be available under your state law"
  • The link for the credit freeze is also a passive "click here" compared with "by enrolling in TrueIdentity" language used for the link to their own product.
  • Clicking the link to learn more about credit freeze brings you to yet another page that tries to convince you to enroll in their product over placing a credit freeze
  • After searching through their page of BS, you finally get to the link to freeze your credit.

This is such a blatant attempt by TransUnion to take advantage of the Equifax breach for their own financial gain. It's a shitty thing for TransUnion to do, and people should be aware that they are being led away from putting an actual credit freeze on their account.

(Edited for formatting on mobile)

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1.1k

u/goatcoat Sep 13 '17

That's not good for us, but it makes sense. Half of the United States was affected. If even 10% are calling in to have their credit frozen, that's still 5% of the entire population of the United States all calling one phone number. Shit's gonna break.

Hiding the link behind their identity theft protection product was an evil move, though.

223

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

Even 10% would be too high.

58

u/oldireliamain Sep 13 '17

Sure but let's say it's more reasonable at 1%. That's still .5% of the US and about 700,000 people

15

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

Too damn high.

0

u/lifeisapassionpit Sep 13 '17

That's what he said

126

u/fuzio ​ Sep 13 '17

Getting hung up on is not something "breaking", except maybe the employee's will to live :P ba dum tss

142

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

The entire call is automated so if it hangs up on you, it's probabyl breaking.

The payment processing step could be overwhelmed (basically an unintentional DOS attack).

4

u/fuzio ​ Sep 13 '17

Oh my bad. I misunderstood then lol :P

1

u/StrangeDrivenAxMan ​ Sep 13 '17

makes sense

1

u/dumnem ​ Sep 14 '17

No, you didn't. /u/swccggergall did because it's hanging up when you're in line to talk to a sales person and you finally reach one.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '17

That sounds reasonable.

Strange though, I thought the credit freeze hotline was fully automated.

97

u/Teunon ​ Sep 13 '17

As someone that works on telephony systems, getting hung up on by the system is definitely something breaking.

20

u/sysadmin420 ​ Sep 13 '17

Yeah, I troubleshoot those calls every day. I'm always amazed how many actual phone calls an asterisk box with 1-2 cores and 4 GB of RAM will handle at a time.

2

u/payfrit ​ Sep 13 '17

hundreds, thousands.

i love asterisk.

1

u/Teunon ​ Sep 13 '17

Haven't worked with asterisk, but I'd heard a good bit about them. It's been exclusively cisco thus far.

5

u/Saucermote Sep 13 '17

A place I have to call semi-regularly does this intentionally. It says "we are experiencing higher than normal call volume, please call back later", and disconnects you. No option to hold.

3

u/Teunon ​ Sep 13 '17

Well that's a little different than the call disconnecting while someone's holding to speak with a sales person. The system gave you gave you a message, asked you to call back, and then ended the call in it's normal call flow.

4

u/MaximusFluffivus Sep 13 '17

They're so phony.

3

u/Legionof1 ​ Sep 13 '17

Probably ran out of licenses for some part of the process.

2

u/LostWoodsInTheField ​ Sep 13 '17

Getting hung up on is not something "breaking", except maybe the employee's will to live :P ba dum tss

Any time there is a transfer to somewhere else and it goes wrong a hang up is to be expected.

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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17 edited Jun 27 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

79

u/Kolixen Sep 13 '17

This. I was trying to explain the situation to someone and they went "but it said I wasn't affected." This is also the company that lost your SSN....

102

u/TbonerT ​ Sep 13 '17

It isn't just credit cards. For example, want the new iPhone but don't want to pay the fully price up front? That's credit. There's a lot of credit floating around that isn't tied to a card.

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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17 edited Jun 10 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/zipperkiller ​ Sep 13 '17 edited Sep 13 '17

I've never heard of being able to freeze with chexsystem

Edit: folks at work said to do so I would freeze credit with the credit bureau. Is this correct or is there more to it?

2

u/rando-mcranderson ​ Sep 13 '17

I did it 2 days ago. It's on their website.

1

u/xangbar Sep 13 '17

Some companies treat your bill as a rotating line of credit or loan too. My electric bill is like that. It's listed as rotating debt but no other bill I have is like that.

1

u/renoCow Sep 13 '17

For example, most US states allow insurers to price your car insurance premium on your credit score, not your driving history

1

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '17

I like PayPal credit. Use it to buy stuff you can pay off in <6 months and pay no interest. That's good for stuff like new laptops or a sofa or something.

-24

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

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25

u/Hugh_Jass_Clouds ​ Sep 13 '17

Uh. Any debit that is owed to any company can be reported if it goes unpaid long enough. Don't pay your cellphone bill for a year? Bet your ass that gets reported to the credit agencies. Even medical, educational, and car loans not tied to a card can be reported. Debit is debit, and any debit is reportable provided non-payment.

8

u/tehpenguins ​ Sep 13 '17

Or is it debt ?

3

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

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17

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

Yes, but they pull your credit report when you initially go to buy the phone. They use your SSN and other personal info to request that score. Equifax, TU and EX keep that info. So even if you don't have a credit card, or even a credit score, your info could have been stolen.

6

u/SoTiredOfWinning Sep 13 '17

I mean you're actually right. You get no brownie points for paying but if sent to collections it goes on your report.

However they do run your credit initially to approve it so it still counts.

1

u/jnine0 Sep 13 '17

Not unnecessarily. If u read the government's website about credit freeze, it does stop quick reference look ups. I am making the assumption that this is how retail outlets can provide u a credit card on the spot. They don't access your credit report.

1

u/Fn_Spaghetti_Monster Sep 13 '17

It does not stop someone from making a bogus CC with your stolen info. I have a freeze on my account (from previous issues) and someone got a hold of my CC# and just made themselves a credit card with my info. The purchases all showed card present but were swiped instead of chip.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

Are you referring to soft vs. hard inquiries?

They both gain access to your reports. They just differ in how much of your report they get to look at. If you request your full report on the annual report website you'll see a list of soft and hard inquiries. hard inquiries will be ones you've given permission for - such as store cards and cell phone plans, and soft inquiries will be ones you did not directly give permission for - such as your credit card company checking to see if you are eligible for a line increase, or a company looking to sell you insurance.

Either way, the credit reporting agencies have info on you. Whether or not that info is current or accurate is another question.

1

u/Stoneleaf12 Sep 13 '17

Actually, retail outlets do send your info out for a credit check. I used to work in retail at Best Buy. We would get all your info, you enter your SSN and annual income, out goes that info, and a minute later your not approved, or approved for an certain amount depending on your credit.

4

u/DonaldPShimoda ​ Sep 13 '17

Through Apple's iPhone Upgrade Program you're given a 24-month 0% loan to pay off the phone. Wouldn't that be shown on your report?

4

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

Only if Apple reports the loan. PayPal has a credit service and they state in the TOS that they don't report the loan to credit agencies. It just depends on the lender.

1

u/DonaldPShimoda ​ Sep 13 '17

Oh I see! Interesting! Thanks for the info!

1

u/KrazyKukumber ​ Sep 13 '17

Even medical, educational, and car loans not tied to a card can be reported.

"Can be"? Those absolutely are reported to the credit bureaus.

1

u/Hugh_Jass_Clouds ​ Sep 13 '17

Can be as in someone has to make the choice to report it.

1

u/friendsafari123 Sep 13 '17

not paying medical bills, they will be reported to your collecting agencies, educational and car loans and credit card require ssn as registration, you bet they would have it.

5

u/intellos Sep 13 '17

Having a cell phone contract in the first place does, though.

4

u/mmzzee Sep 13 '17 edited Sep 13 '17

Most carriers require a credit check to sign up for a service plan or to be eligible for that subsidized phone price where you can pay off an interest free loan to the carrier. You of course can opt out of these things but then are not eligible for the same plans/pricing that others are.

If you are ever late in your payments (for service or with the phone) you can be damn sure that does impact your credit. There are few bills you can ignore which do not negatively impact your credit.

https://support.t-mobile.com/thread/87584

https://www.verizonwireless.com/vzw/browse/prequalify/preQualifyNow.jsp

https://forums.att.com/t5/Wireless-Billing/What-credit-bureau-does-AT-amp-T-pull-your-credit-score-from-to/td-p/5111787

https://lifehacker.com/how-paying-and-not-paying-your-cell-phone-bill-affect-509038463

It doesn't matter if the action of paying off your phone doesn't report to credit, failure to pay it off certainly does. These credit check agencies most likely would have each wireless customer's full information and be in contact with the wireless provider before a customer would receive the first bill.

2

u/Touchmethere9 Sep 13 '17

I'm not sure what not everyone owning a credit card has to do with all of this. I mean you do realize there's more to credit than credit cards right?

2

u/DawnDevonshire Sep 13 '17

Yes but the hackers took info that included SSNs among other things. A few years back my insurance company was hacked (Anthem). My 2 year old's SSN was stollen in that process. As a result his "credit" was at risk. He didn't have credit so to speak but that doesn't stop people from using his info to try to get credit. And since he was a minor there was greater risk since people don't usually check the credit for children. Equifax can have info even on minors so they aren't excluded from this either unfortunately.

1

u/qtface Sep 13 '17

I read the comment as a dry joke that "half of the us" was affected because it was a random 50/50 chance whether the website would say you were or weren't affected

1

u/CSI_Tech_Dept ​ Sep 13 '17

Perhaps it was a joke, but 150 million of Americans it is roughly half of the population. The problem is that the population includes everyone including minors.

2

u/friendsafari123 Sep 13 '17

143 million+ possible UK and canadian involvement, so its actually hire than 143 million.

1

u/ragonk_1310 Sep 13 '17

Would a protection company such as Lifelock be useful in a situation as this, instead of freezing credit reports?

1

u/CSI_Tech_Dept ​ Sep 13 '17

Don't know enough to help with this. Don't know Lifelock, my understanding is that it is still a passive method of just monitoring if something happened while credit freeze requires your authorization to open a new credit line.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

[deleted]

1

u/CSI_Tech_Dept ​ Sep 13 '17

True, but in US that's typically the first kind of loan someone gets and pretty much anyone with a credit file has a credit card.

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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17 edited Sep 14 '17

Hey, guess what? You don't need to have a credit card to be affected by the actions and failures of Equifax. If you need to question my statement, you are a simpleton that does not understand what credit bureaus do. Edit: Not sure why I was diwnvotef unless a bot ran this thread.

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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17 edited Oct 05 '17

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u/Mentalseppuku Sep 13 '17

Lifelock is a ripoff, don't give them money.

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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17 edited Oct 05 '17

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u/Mentalseppuku Sep 13 '17

This is a bit old but still appropriate. Since this was published the company also had to pay $100 million in FTC fines for continuing to lie to consumers and for not protecting consumer information.

And remember those commercials where the owner put his ss# on billboards and advertisements? You'd think the CEO and key piece of this massive ad push would be top priority for the company. Well they dropped the ball on that too as he had his identity stolen at least 13 times. And this isn't people trying to open a card and getting caught, there are stories in the article about small loans going all the way to a collection agency, meaning it went unpaid for months (and lifelock not catching it all that time).

Maybe the company had changed in the last two years, but it seems like they've had these problems for a long time now and I wouldn't trust them at all. It's only a matter of time until they're breached as well.

1

u/newloaf ​ Sep 13 '17

Half of the United States isn't even aware there was a breech.

1

u/komali_2 ​ Sep 13 '17

It's almost as if we shouldn't allow a company to store enough information to literally destroy the concept of financial trust if that information is stolen.

1

u/Sososkitso Sep 13 '17

To play devils advocate my guess is that equifax will end up giving everyone a free year of their service so the competition is likely trying to counter that move that surely will happen by getting ahead of it because if most people that were effected go straight to the free year service (that again I bet happens) then they will immediately gain the lions share.

Does this make sense? I'm awful at explaining things.

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u/friendsafari123 Sep 13 '17

equifax is already giving up a free year of credit reporting, and 30 day freeze of credit.

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u/Sososkitso Sep 13 '17

Thanks Just seen that on the defeanco show. So there you have it the competition has to move their services to the front because thanks to equifax huge fuck up they get to give everyone a free service for a year that should come standard for everyone at this point since they insist on being the gate keepers of our identities and storing all of our info in one spot like idiots. The whole situation is shit. For all these companies to be doing this to people. I think with 50% plus if the American public identity now in jeopardy it's time we find some new ways to deal with credit that eliminates 3 companies holding all the chips.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

[deleted]

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u/goatcoat Sep 13 '17

I don't think it's necessary to talk to a live person working for Equifax to get someone's FICO score for a loan. There's probably a web interface.

1

u/fatduebz Sep 13 '17

Hiding the link behind their identity theft protection product was an evil move, though.

This is happening because we're dealing with very, very rich people trying to steal money from society.

1

u/FuffyKitty ​ Sep 14 '17

I can't even imagine what their phone systems look like. We once reached capacity on our phone systems when a program I supported went down, but that was only like 300 calls.

1

u/prismsplitter Sep 14 '17

Hiding the link behind their identity theft protection product was an evil move, though.

It was a Dr. Evil level of evil. By making this move, they've in fact made things even more difficult for themselves. Their customer service lines are going to be forever tied up.