Just out of curiosity today I applied for a Chase card with all three reports frozen. The Chase website instructed me to unfreeze my Equifax report and gave me a 1-877 number to call. I then put in a temporary lift on myEquifax and called the 1-877 number. Oddly the automated system gave me a message that my application had been received and that I'd receive notice of their decision later. It ... Experian offers two different services, one through the regular experian.com website and another through experianidworks.com. Credit freeze and thaw is free through experian.com, you just need to jump through the hoops of creating your account, again for free. The other services is a 'Credit Lock' which is done through their idworks site. I’d like to sign up for a security freeze account at Experian, and the website offers a choice between a "Free Membership" and an "Experian Service Account". Does anyone know what the difference between them is? The Free Membership seems to offer additional services, such as FICO scores, and I’m wondering whether there is any downside to selecting it (or to selecting the service account). You can still freeze your credit, but fraud alert is even better. This is simply not true. While a fraud alert adds an extra verification step, a credit freeze is considered the stronger protection since it completely restricts access to your credit report for new creditors unless you proactively allow it. So while it is nice that you only have to apply a fraud alert one time to have it apply ...
