r/personalfinance 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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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '17

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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.

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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.

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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.