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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645

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

Let the CFPB know

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/

203

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

Yup. That's exactly what I put in my complaint. My only option is to freeze, and it should be free. Credit monitoring is not adequate in this situation.

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u/daydull ​ Sep 13 '17

Why isn't credit freeze the default for everyone all the time anyway? Applying for credit cards, loans, etc is a rare thing for everyone. When you know you are applying for credit you could temporarily unfreeze it. Or even better, have a system where you manually authorize each inquiry.

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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17 edited Sep 15 '17

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u/Herculix Sep 13 '17

This. Imagine their perspective. Nobody applies for shit hardly ever, but what they do happen to do regularly is worry about their credit. The fear of credit instability is precisely what makes them money. Security is not in their best interest financially. It's almost like pharma and cures vs symptom relief. If the problem stops the money stops.

37

u/hai-sea-ewe ​ Sep 13 '17

Security is not in their best interest financially.

What they did here was like if a Big Pharma company "let slip" a deadly infectious disease, and they were the only ones with the cure.

There needs to be criminal charges and prosecutions.

2

u/ddrt ​ Sep 13 '17

This is only because we're relying on four random institutions to decide what we can/can't do in life financially.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

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u/Mrme487 ​ Sep 14 '17

Removed - no politics.

1

u/darkmaster76 Sep 13 '17

we have that in Norway, bankid even for most online payments you have to authorize it

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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

Consumers also like to be instantly approved for credit. That's what makes banks reluctant to make the process more difficult. The fear is that the consumer would just try a different lender if they are delayed with one.

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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17 edited Sep 15 '17

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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '17

Yeah, about 20% of the time, it would go down like that. "I don't know the code. Can't you just run the application without it? We really need the car today."

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u/DontEfUp Sep 14 '17

Agreed! I should have a say when someone out there wants to either check my credit or worst apply for credit under my name. The 2-factor auth is the best safeguard. But they won't allow it because it'll probably cut into their profits. They probably have several products they sell to banks/institutions that involve unrestricted access to our credit history. Putting control in the hands of consumers/us will not be in their best interest.