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I'd love to freeze my credit but as one of the millions of Americans living overseas I have learned that this is flat out impossible for us. I've even written t

I'd love to freeze my credit but as one of the millions of Americans living overseas I have learned that this is flat out impossible for us. I've even written to my Senators and they can't get it done either (One positive note, it was surprisingly easy to reach them and they seemed genuinely eager to help). Fortunately 'identity theft' is an imaginary concept, you cannot have your identity stolen - you are still you and no one can ever change that. It's the financial institutions' problem to fix at the end of the day, but there is this expectation that you are obliged to help them understand how they fell for a scam, and you are expected to do this for free or they make your life more difficult. We do need a better system for expats.

_asummers 9y ago
The entire term "identity theft" is designed to offload blame from the companies themselves. Should be called "criminally negligent data loss" in many cases.
- nathan_long 9y ago
  Yes. A negligent bank blames you because they didn't bother verifying a criminal's claim to be you. Someone on another HN thread suggested the term "bank slander".
abawany 9y ago
I was able to complete freezes online for all. Are you able to say why it posed an obstacle for you to freeze your file please?
- tombrossman 9y ago
  The credit bureaus were unwilling to validate requests from non-US address when I tried, just after news broke of the Equifax breach. The online forms literally had no provision for changing the country, with US State and ZIP code (of my current address) being mandatory fields. I asked about it in the expats Stack Exchange site and others had the same problem: https://expatriates.stackexchange.com/questions/12104/how-can-us-citizens-living-overseas-freeze-their-credit https://expatriates.stackexchange.com/questions/12104/how-ca... Same goes for Social Security accounts, they require a US address before they permit you to log in online and monitor your account for fraud.

_asummers 9y ago

The entire term "identity theft" is designed to offload blame from the companies themselves. Should be called "criminally negligent data loss" in many cases.

nathan_long 9y ago
Yes. A negligent bank blames you because they didn't bother verifying a criminal's claim to be you. Someone on another HN thread suggested the term "bank slander".

abawany 9y ago

I was able to complete freezes online for all. Are you able to say why it posed an obstacle for you to freeze your file please?

tombrossman 9y ago
The credit bureaus were unwilling to validate requests from non-US address when I tried, just after news broke of the Equifax breach. The online forms literally had no provision for changing the country, with US State and ZIP code (of my current address) being mandatory fields. I asked about it in the expats Stack Exchange site and others had the same problem: https://expatriates.stackexchange.com/questions/12104/how-can-us-citizens-living-overseas-freeze-their-credit https://expatriates.stackexchange.com/questions/12104/how-ca... Same goes for Social Security accounts, they require a US address before they permit you to log in online and monitor your account for fraud.