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News: Freezing Your Credit for Free with the Transunion App - Credit-Land.com

Freezing your credit report is now free, and it's very easy to do with the release of a new app by Transunion, one of the three credit reporting bureaus.With this new app consumers can easily freeze their credit report in real time, and then unfreeze it when they are ready, all from inside the app. The myTransUnion app can be found on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

What does it mean to freeze your account? Once an account is "frozen" if a cyber thief tries to open an account in your name the lender cannot check your credit report, effectively throwing a monkey wrench into the plans of fraudsters. A credit freeze also stops your credit information from being released for a variety of other kinds of reviews. "As personal data protection becomes an increasingly growing concern, we are more passionate than ever about encouraging consumers to take action," said John Danaher, President, Consumer Interactive.

The "free freeze" law

The app was rolled out to coincide with the Economic Recovery, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act going live on September 21, 2018.

The "free freeze" law gives consumers the ability to freeze and unfreeze their credit report whenever they want or need to regardless of the reason - all for free.

Fear of data breaches is real

Data breaches are on the minds of consumers, according to a new study recently released by Transunion, finding that many people feel like they are ill prepared to deal with a breach or identity theft.

In the study, 75% of people admitted that they have started to worry more about their data being compromised by a data breach during the last year. While more 50% believe that they could be a victim of credit card fraud or identity theft.

They also found that 54% of people taking part in the study had already been a victim of a data breach or fraud, with 20% of those people admitting that they had been victimized more than once in the past year and a half by fraudsters.

Do you know anyone who has been affected by fraud or a data breach? If so you are not alone according to the study, finding that 75% of people know someone too.

That said just 15% of people feel very confident that they have the tools on hand to keep themselves safe from data breaches and fraud.

tags : Banks Credit Score

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