How to Freeze Your Social Security Number
It’s surprisingly easy to take this extra step to ensure your identity and finances are safe
Unfortunately, fraud and identity theft are at an all-time high right now. With new data breaches happening seemingly every week, nearly everyone has some of their personal information floating around on the internet somewhere. And since the onset of a worldwide pandemic, some of the more popular attempts at fraud have been unemployment fraud, debit and credit card fraud, and identity theft.
There are a number of steps you can take to protect your personal information before you become a victim, and one of the best ones is to “freeze” your social security number. Doing so will block all access to your credit reports by requesting security freezes at all three national credit bureaus.
Many wait until they have an emergency or a specific reason to freeze their credit, but it’s better to do it before you have a reason. The entire process takes a few minutes, and you can “freeze” and “thaw” your credit with the clicks of a few buttons whenever necessary.
It’s important to note that, when you take this step, you will also prevent yourself from doing things such as applying for a store credit card or buying a new car unless you temporarily lift the…
