Hope Leitner, Realtor®, CRS

  Information is brought to you by Hope Leitner Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties How to Freeze Your Credit for Free To stop a criminal from using your personal information to open a credit card in your name, start by preventing lenders from checking your credit unless you first unfreeze your information. Even if you have poor credit—or are low on savings—protecting your credit from identity theft by taking advantage of a free credit freeze is a good idea. Thieves can steal your personal information (i.e., Social Security number, driver’s license number and birth date) and create new identities to fraudulently get loans and open credit card accounts in your name. A credit freeze prevents lenders from checking your credit in order to open a new account. So, if a criminal has your personal information and tries to open a credit card in your name, a credit freeze will stop the lender from checking your credit. If you have a credit freeze in place, you must remove it to