aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Monday, November 28, 2005

Credit freezes we want

In a post about how the credit industry is fighting even feeble measures to thwart identity theft, demonstrating just how seriously they take the issue, Kevin Drum discusses credit freezes:

Basically, a credit freeze prevents credit reporting agencies from revealing your credit history without first getting your express permission. This makes it nearly impossible for thieves to acquire phony credit cards in your name, since card issuers won’t issue new cards without first requesting your credit score from a credit reporting agency. If you’ve frozen your report, you’ll be notified when the request is made and can shut it down immediately.

The downside is that if you apply for new credit, you can’t get it until the credit reporting agency has contacted you first. In other words, no more same-day credit. It might take two or three days instead.

That’s not much of a downside, is it? In fact, for my money, all credit reports ought to be frozen by default. If you prefer to have your report unfrozen - that is, you’re willing to run the risk of ID theft in return for slightly faster approval of your credit applications - then you can unfreeze it.

There’s simply no reason for consumers not to have this choice, and the credit industry opposes it solely because the slight delay it introduces might make people think twice about applying for new credit - and that’s bad for business. Who cares about identity theft when there’s same-day credit to be extended?

MUST READ: Kevin’s Monthly article on identity theft, You Own You.