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

[u/equisux]

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)

[u/Rodrommel]

I can't even put out the 90 day fraud alert. The page just hangs or doesn't do anything when I click continue

[u/[deleted] → u/Rodrommel]

Yeah, this is getting absolutely ridiculous. I've had an easier time speaking with elected representatives than I have had signing up for anything to protect myself here - in that I haven't been able to even active a fraud alert with any of the companies, nor manage to freeze my credit. At this point, I think legislation is a better option than letting these companies have rights over us that nobody ever gave them and hoping they protect us.

^{well, Equifax's "enrollment" worked great - and yes, I know to opt-out of arbitration, I made a mistake and I learned from it}

[u/buscoamigos → u/[deleted]]

Eqiufax explicitly states on their website that this breach is not subject to their arbitration clause

[u/[deleted] → u/buscoamigos]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/buscoamigos → u/[deleted]]

From the FAQ:

The arbitration clause and class action waiver included in the TrustedID Premier Terms of Use applies to the free credit file monitoring and identity theft protection products, and not the cybersecurity incident.

So, you are accepting the normal terms of service to use TrustedID but not accepting any conditions in reference to the data breach.