You’ve applied for a car loan or some other type of loan and were turned down. What’s happened? You thought your credit score was good enough to get a low-interest loan and now you are being told that you may not qualify for any loan at all! Faced with the news, all you can think about is how to get credit repair help so you can sort through the confusing financial maze and get to the bottom of this terrible mishap asap.

Undoubtedly, you feel scared, confused and perhaps even victimized, for it appears your identity has been stolen. After all, you know your credit score should be way better than average. You have paid off your other loans with only the very rare late payment here and there. Your credit card balances are low and you just paid one of your credit cards completely off.
But you learn there is a mortgage listed on your credit – one you KNOW you did not obtain. And to make matters worse, just as you start trying to sort through the mess, collection agencies begin calling.

Searching for information on credit report repair, you stumble across something very interesting. It’s something called “freezing” and it can help you protect your identity from would-be thieves and ultimately protect your credit score.

If you had just known this earlier, perhaps you could have sidestepped the inevitable fear and frustration that comes along with being turned down for a loan.

What is Freezing and How Does it Work?

A credit freeze prevents anyone, including legitimate lenders, from accessing your credit history. As you may have guessed, few lenders (including banks and credit card companies) will issue credit without first seeing a credit report. This also makes it nearly impossible for identity to open fraudulent accounts in your name.

This can be a great tool for you to use to protect your identity, especially at a time when access to personal information, which can include name, date of birth and Social Security number, are easy to obtain. In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that MasterCard was up against a public relations nightmare after announcing that a computer “hacker” may have accessed information on some 40 million credit card accounts, leaving MasterCard users reeling, fearing identity theft and that they had little or no control over who could view their most private information.
This same breach, which involved a payment processing center, involved 22 million Visa USA accounts and an unspecified amount of American Express and Discover customers, proving that no one’s personal and financial information is completely safe.

This, the largest breach to date, sparked new interest in identity theft and ways to safe guard against it. Eventually, this served as a catalyst for more protection against identity theft, including several states adopting credit-freeze laws that bar lenders and other businesses from reviewing credit reports.

But this new protection comes with mixed reviews. Critics maintain that a credit freeze does not prevent someone from using a stolen credit card number to purchase items or steal funds. They also believe that a freeze can create problems for consumers. For instance, an individual who has put his or her credit records on ice can't buy a car, get a new credit card or refinance a mortgage without first lifting the freeze, which can take several days.
There’s no room for financial emergencies here.

There is Another Option

While a credit freeze is ultimately the best protection, there is a good alternative. It’s called fraud-alert, and it alerts lenders to verify your identity before issuing loans or credit lines of any kind.

This can be a great tool for anyone who believes they’ve fallen prey to identity thieves. All you have to do is file a police report and you can get a fraud-alert for up to seven full years.
Without evidence, such as a police report, you can obtain fraud alert protection for 90 days.

Being Proactive: Why Wait Until After You are Victimized?

If you wait until you are victimized, you will be faced with the nightmare of cleaning up your credit from charges and charge-backs you never made. Repairing credit, in particular credit that is yours, yet boasts negative information and low scores because of identity theft, can be daunting at best.

You can place a freeze on your credit history, but because it typically takes three business days to “unfreeze” the protection, you may miss out on a low-interest rate or one-time credit card offer. Here is the list of requirements you will need in order to freeze your credit report

Weighing the Pros and Cons

There is a reputable credit repair service that you can rely on to help you determine which identity protection solution is best for you and to help you fix bad credit that is currently on your credit report. The credit repair company, Lexington Law, will take you by the hand and lead you through every step necessary to fix bad credit. And, during this process, you will learn the pros and cons of freezing your credit and relying on fraud alerts.

The professionals at the Lexington law firm will help you turn an identify theft credit problem around and provide you with the help you need to put identity theft behind you once and for all, and safeguard your identity in the future, dramatically decreasing the chances of you being victimized again. For more information on hiring Lexington Law to combat identity theft,
click this security freeze link

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