psa: credit freeze

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Since banks and video game makers apparently must provide identity thieves with an Ethernet cable that leads to our personal information, I thought I'd take a moment to recommend something that works amazingly well. I know. I'm surprised, too.

I once fired my accountant for incompetence. A year later, Kiki, another of his customers, told me the accountant had sent her a letter saying that his laptop had been stolen out of the office, and it had all our tax data on it, including our Social Security numbers, in unlocked files. It was then that I initiated a "credit freeze" on myself.

Two months later, the accountant sent me an identical letter. See "fired for incompetence," above.

Simply put, a credit freeze means that if someone tries to get a credit card or phone or cable TV in my name, they are denied. Period. And when I switched TV providers, I had to get online for two minutes and pay $10 to have the freeze temporarily lifted so that a credit check could be performed. I even told them to slap the freeze back on after one day, which they did.

I cannot recommend this highly enough. The cost is practically nil--$30 to get going ($10 to the three credit bureaus), and 10-$30 every time you want credit issued. The inconvenience is trivial. It's cost me two minutes in four years. And I don't worry about ID thieves at all anymore.

Pricing varies state by state. WA state residents can start here.

47 states require that the credit bureaus offer this service. I see Michigan does not, and yeah, why bother? No self-respecting meth freak identity thief would pretend to be from Michigan.