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Things I’ve learned thru this that I’ve found appalling... 1. Freezing your credit is meaningless thru Experian. You or anyone can obtain your freeze pin usi

Things I’ve learned thru this that I’ve found appalling... 1. Freezing your credit is meaningless thru Experian. You or anyone can obtain your freeze pin using your personal now public info via their tool https://www.experian.com/ncaconline/freezepin https://www.experian.com/ncaconline/freezepin 2. If you freeze your credit with Experian they send you a letter in the mail saying you will no longer receive credit cards offers for five years. Also that they notified Equifax and Transunion to halt any and all offers to be sent to me. WOW who are these people the mafia? I just wanted to freeze my credit thru them.

vanattab 9y ago
If I had known I could stop all the cc spam by freezing my credit I would have done it years ago.
- g051051 9y ago
  You can do that at any time by requesting a promotional block on your credit file. This prevents you from showing up in credit sweeps.
- briffle 9y ago
  You can opt out of prescreened offers from a single site. It works well, and has been around at least 15 years. https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t
- IncRnd 9y ago
  The terms are getting mixed up. A promotional block is different from a credit freeze. The first is a product. The second is a legal requirement on the credit bureaus.
tylersmith 9y ago
The entire credit system is a security nightmare. They all appear to use very basic "security" that has not been upgraded along with the rest of the world. Conflating identity and authorization, using deterministic values instead of random ones when necessary, and even for Equifax plain old sending people to the wrong domain.
- subway 9y ago
  Why limit it to just the credit system? Security is always an afterthought. Even if a company is marketing itself as a security oriented company, you can bank on the marketing itself being valued more by the organization than any sort of safeguard for protecting the customer ('subjects' may be a more apt descriptor in this case.) And while I'd love to blame the bankers on this, I feel the blame is 100% at the feet of sysadmins and developers who decided getting paid was more important than doing the right fucking thing. Now gimmie my downvotes, you spineless bastards (and the sociopaths you bend over for).
  - grzm 9y ago
    > Now gimmie my downvotes, you spineless bastards (and the sociopaths you bend over for) Just please leave this off. The guidelines ask us to, and if you're worried about down votes, being aggressive and rude isn't going to help matters.
  - IncRnd 9y ago
    That's not how it normally works. Sysadmins and Devs don't usually have the ability to decide the strategic direction of a company
g051051 9y ago
Freezing your credit means no company can get access to your credit history. If credit companies can't pre-screen you, you won't get any credit card offers.
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  >>If credit companies can't pre-screen you, you won't get any credit card offers. Now I'm intrigued...
  - stnaoent23nt 9y ago
    You can permanently opt-out of credit card and insurance offers via this web site: <https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t> https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t>
- tylersmith 9y ago
  That's a great side effect. If you need a credit card you can solicit one yourself.
  - tehwebguy 9y ago
    For anyone here that likes to earn points, AMEX physical mailers are usually the best signup bonus offers by far, and they are once per person + product so don't burn the bonus applying online for less.
  - g051051 9y ago
    Yes, exactly. I put a promotional block on my file over 20 years ago, and the number of credit card solicitations went to zero. It's never stopped me from obtaining credit whenever I wanted it, though.
    - dmoy 9y ago
      Wait how do you put a block on? I'd love to stop receiving cc offers every other week.
IncRnd 9y ago
+1 Thanks for pointing this out. I had no idea about this. This is a big bucket of liability just waiting for Experian.
AFNobody 9y ago
> Freezing your credit is meaningless thru Experian. It can be recovered via all 3 in various ways. Once your identity is "stolen", a credit freeze is completely ineffective if the attacker chooses to use the recovery options and/or contact them via the phone. There is no "security" in the credit system from the debt collectors to the credit cards to the credit agencies. It is really unfortunate and proof we can't trust corporations to self-regulate. I wish we could live in a world where people could be trusted to not to fuck over their fellow human beings in the pursuit of money but alas, we do not.

vanattab 9y ago

If I had known I could stop all the cc spam by freezing my credit I would have done it years ago.

g051051 9y ago
You can do that at any time by requesting a promotional block on your credit file. This prevents you from showing up in credit sweeps.
briffle 9y ago
You can opt out of prescreened offers from a single site. It works well, and has been around at least 15 years. https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t
IncRnd 9y ago
The terms are getting mixed up. A promotional block is different from a credit freeze. The first is a product. The second is a legal requirement on the credit bureaus.

tylersmith 9y ago

The entire credit system is a security nightmare. They all appear to use very basic "security" that has not been upgraded along with the rest of the world. Conflating identity and authorization, using deterministic values instead of random ones when necessary, and even for Equifax plain old sending people to the wrong domain.

subway 9y ago
Why limit it to just the credit system? Security is always an afterthought. Even if a company is marketing itself as a security oriented company, you can bank on the marketing itself being valued more by the organization than any sort of safeguard for protecting the customer ('subjects' may be a more apt descriptor in this case.) And while I'd love to blame the bankers on this, I feel the blame is 100% at the feet of sysadmins and developers who decided getting paid was more important than doing the right fucking thing. Now gimmie my downvotes, you spineless bastards (and the sociopaths you bend over for).
- grzm 9y ago
  > Now gimmie my downvotes, you spineless bastards (and the sociopaths you bend over for) Just please leave this off. The guidelines ask us to, and if you're worried about down votes, being aggressive and rude isn't going to help matters.
- IncRnd 9y ago
  That's not how it normally works. Sysadmins and Devs don't usually have the ability to decide the strategic direction of a company

g051051 9y ago

Freezing your credit means no company can get access to your credit history. If credit companies can't pre-screen you, you won't get any credit card offers.

enraged_camel 9y ago
>>If credit companies can't pre-screen you, you won't get any credit card offers. Now I'm intrigued...
- stnaoent23nt 9y ago
  You can permanently opt-out of credit card and insurance offers via this web site: <https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t> https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t>
tylersmith 9y ago
That's a great side effect. If you need a credit card you can solicit one yourself.
- tehwebguy 9y ago
  For anyone here that likes to earn points, AMEX physical mailers are usually the best signup bonus offers by far, and they are once per person + product so don't burn the bonus applying online for less.
- g051051 9y ago
  Yes, exactly. I put a promotional block on my file over 20 years ago, and the number of credit card solicitations went to zero. It's never stopped me from obtaining credit whenever I wanted it, though.
  - dmoy 9y ago
    Wait how do you put a block on? I'd love to stop receiving cc offers every other week.

IncRnd 9y ago

+1 Thanks for pointing this out. I had no idea about this. This is a big bucket of liability just waiting for Experian.

AFNobody 9y ago

> Freezing your credit is meaningless thru Experian. It can be recovered via all 3 in various ways. Once your identity is "stolen", a credit freeze is completely ineffective if the attacker chooses to use the recovery options and/or contact them via the phone. There is no "security" in the credit system from the debt collectors to the credit cards to the credit agencies. It is really unfortunate and proof we can't trust corporations to self-regulate. I wish we could live in a world where people could be trusted to not to fuck over their fellow human beings in the pursuit of money but alas, we do not.