Recent fraud victim myself. To initiate a long term fraud alert on report you have to get a police report and send it along with copies of identification, etc.

Recent fraud victim myself. To initiate a long term fraud alert on report you have to get a police report and send it along with copies of identification, etc. via mail seperately to each credit bureau company. That makes it so fraudsters can still try getting credit in your name but the business is supposed to call you to confirm it's you applying. If the fraud poster has an accomplice, say at the shady cell phone kiosk at the mall, they just ignore the warning. Best case is the detected fraudulent hard inquiry stays on your report for up to 4 weeks lowering your score in the meantime. All a big hassle. Guess what you can do instead? Instantly and online pay to have a credit freeze enabled. Then you pay again and again to lift it when you need credit. In some states you are allowed a free credit freeze BUT you need to have gone through fraud, hassled with the police report, and the kicker is, snail mail your requests in both for initial freeze and subsequent temporary suspensions. Obviously I took the instant paid route. What a racket! I should either start a class action lawsuit or perhaps just buy some stock in these jokers.