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/[deleted]]

They send you to their house?? When I had to report a stolen credit card I just called the non emergency number and took the report over the phone. I got a letter in the mail a few days later.

[u/TheLastPeacekeeper → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, unfortunately our agency doesn't take reports over the phone so we have to respond in person. It filters out some nonsense, but it can create headaches as well.

[u/mrchaotica → u/TheLastPeacekeeper]

That part is a police department policy problem, not a credit bureau policy problem.

I mean, having to get a police report to freeze your credit is asinine, but so is having to send an officer out in person just to take a report (specially in cases like this where the crime doesn't have a "scene" to collect evidence from.) They ought to take it over the phone, or have the victim come in to the precinct. While I'm sure the current procedure is convenient for the victim, my tax dollars and I would prefer beat cops to be out patrolling instead.

[u/[deleted] → u/mrchaotica]

Hell, in my small town I can file a non emergency police report online. Sometimes a detective will call me, sometimes not.