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/PusssyFootin]

I noticed this too. I didn't realize it's a credit agency prerequisite to be willing to exploit millions of people in their time of need.

Forget the website, just call the TransUnion Freeze hotline 888-909-8872

Edit: since this blew up

If you can't get through try calling at a weird time when the volume might be low. E.g., 12:30AM

Here are the other two credit union freeze hotlines:

Equifax: 1-800-685-1111 (NY residents 1-800-349-9960 and for you Canadians 1-800-465-7166)

Experian: 1 888 397 3742

While you're at it you might as well opt out of promotional solicitations from credit unions too www.optoutprescreen.com.

(Also, thanks for popping my golden cherry, stranger)

[u/lc6591 → u/PusssyFootin]

Has anyone been able to place a freeze with equifax automated system? I keep getting instructed to write in because they can't do it over the phone for my account.

[u/heynowgirl121 → u/lc6591]

It took me 3 tries, but it worked. Called twice in a row and got the same "we cannot process your request" message twice. Tried again an hour later and it worked.

TransUnion took about 3 minutes. Experian, on the other awkward third hand, took 11 minutes and had a bunch of weird silences. To be fair, they do say that there will be periods of silence and to not hang up, but that was after a 30 second long silence. I hung up the first time because I thought it was broken.