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Credit Freeze and Fraud Alert

Two free federal tools for stopping identity thieves from opening accounts in your name - one that locks your credit file, one that warns lenders to check who they are dealing with.

Informational only - this is not legal advice. These definitions explain general legal vocabulary in plain English. They are not advice about your situation, reading them creates no attorney-client relationship, and the law differs from state to state and changes over time. For advice you can rely on, speak to a lawyer licensed in your state.

What it means

A credit freeze (also called a security freeze) restricts access to your credit report at a consumer reporting agency, so that a lender running a credit check on an application in your name is turned away. Since most new accounts cannot be opened without that check, a freeze at each of the three nationwide agencies is the single most effective step against new-account identity theft. It is free, it must be placed and lifted within short statutory timeframes, and it does not affect your credit score or your existing accounts. You lift it - temporarily or for a named lender - when you apply for credit yourself.

A fraud alert is different: your report remains available, but it carries a flag telling any lender to take reasonable steps to verify that the applicant is really you before extending credit. An initial alert can be placed on request and lasts for a fixed period; an extended alert, available to someone who has an identity theft report, lasts for years and also removes you from prescreened credit offers. Placing an alert with one nationwide agency obliges that agency to notify the others.

Both are entitlements, not products. An agency may not charge for a freeze, may not require a subscription or a "lock" service in its place, and must also provide free freezes for a consumer's minor children and for people under a guardianship.

Where this comes from

Both are created by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Fraud alerts are at 15 U.S.C. § 1681c-1(a)-(c); the free national security freeze, its placement and removal timeframes, and the protected-consumer freeze for children are at § 1681c-1(i)-(j), added by the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act of 2018. The right to a free credit report after placing an alert is § 1681j.

When people hire a lawyer for this

Placing a freeze or an alert needs no lawyer and should not wait for one. Advice becomes worth having when the theft has already produced accounts, collections or a damaged report - at that point the freeze is the least of it, and the questions are the identity theft report, the blocking of fraudulent information under the same Act, and the disputes with each furnisher.

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Part of the LawyerLand plain-English legal glossary. Definitions are written from primary sources - statutes and court rules - and each entry states the authority it rests on, or says plainly when the doctrine is state law with no national rule.

If you cannot afford a lawyer, civil legal aid programmes provide free help with many of these problems: civil legal aid programmes by state.

Related free reference tools: statute of limitations for a personal-injury claim, by state, quoted from each state's official text - part of LawyerLand's legal reference tools.