I was notified that my social sec. number and date of birth was accessed by criminal hackers (crackers). I received a letter stating that I should palce a security alert and security freeze on my credit.
What impact can this have on my credit, getting home loans, credit cards, etc.?
you will simply be alerted everytime your credit changes for any reason. Balance changes ,inquiries ect. In some cases you may have to call or provide a pin # to allow companies to see your credit, small headache to avoida much larger one.
request the 90-day frauid alert. they will require a phone number contact for you before any credit can be advanced and will inform you of any attempted activity in your account.
From my understanding, there is a temporary fraud alert that each credit bureau can put on your file. We’ve been calling them 90 day alerts but I think each bureau is a little different. There is no permanent alert but the next step up is a 7 year alert. This requires paperwork and possibly a police report of some type to verify you have been the victim of fraud. I’ve used the 90 day alerts on a rolling basis with good results. Just monitor your credit report on a regular basis if you suspect your identity has been compromised.
My situation is something more and more Americans are facing: theft of database information with our personal information. It seems as if every month I hear about a bank, credit card company or university that had its dbase downloaded. It’s scary stuff.
Thanks for the info! I placed the fraud alert and will continue to do so for my protection.
Any other info from any one would be welcomed, though…