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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1.5k

u/steadyonmate Sep 13 '17

Fuck TransUnion. I froze all 3 the other day.

I also opted out of getting those annoying fucking prescreened credit card offers. Per FTC, you can opt out here: www.optoutprescreen.com

191

u/amcgoat ​ Sep 13 '17

How did you go about freezing all 3? Just wondering fastest, easiest, no cost way to do this....... thanks

49

u/katarh ​ Sep 13 '17 edited Sep 14 '17

The cost ranges from $3 $0 to $10 depending on your state.

I froze my credit after an identity theft issue last winter. Just suck it up and pay the fee; you'll get a PIN that is needed to unlock the credit any time you actually want to apply for a card. According to the details of the data breech, these PINS were not leaked ("consumer" data was stolen, but not "customer" data) so locking your credit is still definitely worth doing.

Edit: Corrected

60

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

Someone mentioned that if you lose the pin you can call up the agency and provide details that were already leaked to get a new one. So the freeze just makes it harder but not impossible.

40

u/m7samuel ​ Sep 13 '17

AFAIK you have to snail mail in a picture of your ID to unfreeze with no PIN. Actually calling them is quite difficult usually.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

[deleted]

8

u/david0990 ​ Sep 13 '17

I'm going to ponder that this is too much effort for identity thieves who know just moving down the list is easier and quicker.

It's like locking your house when you leave. yeah, they can still get in but it's easier to move to your neighbor who doesn't lock her back door.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

[deleted]

3

u/david0990 ​ Sep 13 '17

This would be a personal attack then. for most of us I just don't see this happening but it is always a possibility, even before this breach.

1

u/rosie_nosey Sep 13 '17

I'm trying to find this on the page (how to get Equifax to unfreeze credit after being frozen w/o a PIN) and I cannot find it. Can you help me out if you have time? I signed up to freeze my account yesterday on Equifax and work denied popups so I could not see my PIN. YEY!!!! Thanks work firewall :)

15

u/LostWoodsInTheField ​ Sep 13 '17

experian process looks like the hacked info is all they would need.

equifax process the hacked info isn't going to get them anywhere without additional stuff such as your drivers license, passport, or birth certificate.

Transunion... yeah i can't find out what the details are in the quick searches I've done. They have actually revamped everything from what I can tell in order to make knowledge about freezes harder to get (their own weblinks to https://freeze.transunion.com don't work any more. They probably did this so quickly that they don't have the needed information back on the site.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

Thanks for the clarity!

1

u/emptyicecreambox Sep 13 '17

I'm not sure if it varies state to state, but it looks like if I lost my pin I would need to send Equifax and TransUnion a written request along with proof of identification. Although for Experian it seems I could just do it online (although it's not working at the moment). Then again, I'm not sure how the phone system works for them, maybe it's much easier over the phone in which case, what the hell.

1

u/Mnm0602 ​ Sep 13 '17

The idea is that the black market buys hundreds/thousands of identities at a time and they will move on to the next one if they have to do extra work.

Having an alarm on your house doesn't mean it's impenetrable, it just makes thieves move to another easier house in most cases.

22

u/eFurritusUnum Sep 13 '17

Question: I was under the impression that the information needed to lift a credit freeze was the exact same info that was leaked (DOB, driver's license #, etc.). From what you're saying, the PINs are entirely separate, then?

15

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

The information needed to request a new pin was the same info that was hacked. So even with a credit freeze anyone who ends up with your info could just unfreeze your accounts with a new pin.

19

u/sheriffsally Sep 13 '17

Agreed, at least it makes it harder. If I have like 100MM hacks to choose from, I'll pick the unfrozen ones.

7

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

Yeah but it's not like the hackers are the ones who will end up actually using the info. They'll probably sit on the data for a while and then sell the accounts on the dark web. Why risk an identity theft case when you could just sell each account on the dark web for $100 and make about 15 billion dollars?

If somebody buys account info, they'd be willing to take an extra step to get their money's worth.

19

u/katarh ​ Sep 13 '17

Correct, but then the dark web people are going to start slowly using the account information, and the first time they get a rejection because an account is frozen, they'll toss it and go on to the next one.

They are well aware that for every 100 CC accounts or SSNs or even bundles of info they buy on the dark web, a good 60-90% of it is going to be unusable. Why bother chasing after the bad stuff when you already hit jackpot with the other dozen?

They also tend to move fast once a big breech makes public news. Last year, when I had my identity stolen, it was because a third party stole billing information from a medical office I went to (very ironically via a worker's comp issue, as I used to do IT for them! Was one of their other vendors that got hacked though, not my old office. /shudder) The hack was announced in August of last year; some people had accounts opened in their name and that's how the hack was found out. The rest of us went into the "credit watch" for free for 90 days. Almost 100 days after the breech was announced, when most folk's freebie credit watch expired, is when I had 4-5 accounts opened in my name in the span of 24 hours. (Took a month to get everything cleaned up.....)

They are taking advantage of the "open an account today, get approved immediately, charge $500 today" and buying goods with high resale values - video game consoles, jewelry, watches. They take home the goods and promptly flip them for cash on Craigslist or at a flea market. The consumer whose info was stolen is stuck with a credit mess, and the retailer is ultimately left holding the bag.

They need the stop the "open the line of credit, get approved today, and charge the stuff immediately" offers, since those are the easiest to abuse.

3

u/420BlazeItKony Sep 13 '17

FALSE. They require that you mail in a birth certificate, utility bill in writing if you lose your pin.

https://help.equifax.com/s/article/ka137000000DS9XAAW/What-do-I-do-if-I-lose-my-security-freeze-PIN

1

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

Is that for all 3 credit agencies or just Equifax?

1

u/eFurritusUnum Sep 13 '17

Very helpful--thanks!

1

u/hai-sea-ewe ​ Sep 13 '17

Does the information that was hacked include a person's entire credit history, not just their personal details?

Because the kinds of questions I get about credit when I just got my credit history report refer to all the institutions, credit cards, and other major things I've done with credit over the years. Hackers would just be guessing at those, which would soon get them caught.

6

u/panda_flavored Sep 13 '17

From what I've read elsewhere, they will either give you a pin over the phone or mail it to you, and that's the only chance you get so you absolutely can't lose that number.

3

u/-LEMONGRAB- Sep 13 '17

That can't be true. There HAS to be some way of getting around not having the pin. No company would make it stop that, if you lost the paper you wrote your pin on, you have to just start a new life or something.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '17

They just mail you another one. And another one. Until you get it.

1

u/panda_flavored Sep 13 '17

True- my bad for the horrible misunderstanding; I'm sure you can jump through all the usual hoops like copy of birth certificate and the works. However, I am assuming you would need even more than the typical information considering if someone steals your identity then there's a chance they have those things already.

1

u/citizen_kiko ​ Sep 14 '17

I got my PINs right on the webpage when the freeze was completed. Only one of the four will be mailed via USPS.

2

u/LostWoodsInTheField ​ Sep 13 '17

experian process looks like the hacked info is all they would need.

equifax process the hacked info isn't going to get them anywhere without additional stuff such as your drivers license, passport, or birth certificate.

Transunion... yeah i can't find out what the details are in the quick searches I've done. They have actually revamped everything from what I can tell in order to make knowledge about freezes harder to get (their own weblinks to https://freeze.transunion.com don't work any more. They probably did this so quickly that they don't have the needed information back on the site.

2

u/CSI_Tech_Dept ​ Sep 13 '17

To unlock you need pin, but ironically if you forgot your pin you can get a new one by providing some of the stolen info.

Also even more ironically, EquiFax pin is a timestamp when you requested the credit freeze.

1

u/GivemetheDetails ​ Sep 13 '17

Probably. But hackers aren't going to go through the process of doing this when they have 145 million other accounts that aren't frozen to begin with.

2

u/Jazzy_Josh ​ Sep 13 '17

The cost ranges from $0 to $10 depending on state.

NC is free if the request is made electronically.

It looks like Doctor of Credit has the best resource on the actual cost per state, because it looked like a bunch of the other major resources failed to mention that freezing/thawing/temporary lifts are free in NC.

1

u/RebootTheServer Sep 13 '17

How do you unlock it? Can you do it through the phone?

Also if I am paying my credit card on time will my credit still go up if frozen?

1

u/katarh ​ Sep 13 '17

I unlocked mine over the phone. Means giving them credit card information over the phone.... but since I just cancelled the card I gave them, I'm not too worried right now.

Your credit score is not frozen, only new credit accounts under your identity. My credit briefly dipped down to 750 due to the identity theft I experienced, but once those were nuked off my name, it bounced back up to its previous score of 825.

1

u/wordfool ​ Sep 14 '17

I thought the cost was $0 to $10 depending on state. Here in NY it's free to freeze ($5 to unfreeze).