Credit lock: Ideal way to protect credit against potential fraud

Let the word ‘credit freeze’ not scare you. A credit freeze basically means potential creditors and lenders cannot access your credit report, making it more difficult for an identity thief to open new accounts in your name—even if they have your personal information.

This means that the lenders and furnishers won’t be able to access your credit file and would be unlikely to grant credit to anyone using your social security number. They can’t pull your credit report or credit score unless you’ve provided the credit bureau with a password to unlock your credit report. However, a credit freeze won’t do anything to protect your existing financial accounts or other identity-related activities that don’t require a credit report check.

The credit freeze option is a far effective factor than a fraud alert and all you are required to furnish is personal information like, name, address, data of birth, social security number, etc, to the credit lending company. Credit freeze is also known by several other terms including credit report freeze, a credit report lock down, a credit lock down, a credit lock, or a security freeze.

A credit lock down can be added, lifted, or removed. Adding it means placing a freeze on your credit, while lifting it temporarily allows you to apply for more credit and removing it means permanently lifting the freeze. You may request a lift for a specific company or for a specific period. However, placing the freeze or lifting it could be chargeable depending upon the credit bureau company. You might even have to pay for a credit report check.

It could take one working day for a credit lock to be implemented, but the lifting could take within an hour via phone request. A request by mail could take up to three working days to lift the freeze.

Contrary to the misconceptions, the freeze does not impact your credit score in any way. You can get your free annual credit report and even open a new account, by lifting the freeze temporarily and practice credit report check as usual.

It may be noted that a credit lock down does not apply to current creditors and lenders. They can still access your credit report and score without you first unlocking your credit report.

At https://creditsscore.in/, we tell you that it’s smart to take other steps to help protect against identity theft and fraud. This way, you can see if your credit report contains any suspicious activity. However, we would also like to tell you that a security freeze may not be the best option if you forget you have one in place or if you are prone to sudden changes in your life. 

Polish your vocabulary to understand online credit score better

Reading a credit score online or Credit Information Report (CIR) could spin the reader’s head. We all know that the key to a good credit score are paying bills on time, having a mix of accounts (credit cards and loans), and keeping these accounts in good standing for years.

Primarily, the credit score report can be classified into current credit, credit inquiries, public records and identifying information. But unfortunately, not knowing what is in the credit report or not being able to understand it could cost the applicant shell out unnecessary money. 

Let’s get into what’s actually on the credit score report for the benefit of applicants who opt for on credit score online.

1. 120 Days Past Due: If the applicant or the borrower has missed a scheduled payment on an account by 120 days, the lender may report the Payment Status as 120 Days Late. This negatively impacts your score. Other similar terms are 150 Days Past Due, 180 Days Past Due, 30 Days Past Due, 60 Days Past Due and 90 Days Past Due.
2. Charge-off: It is a balance on a credit report that a lender no longer expects to be repaid and writes off as a bad debt.
3. Credit mix: Credit mix refers to the types of secured and unsecured loan accounts that make up a consumer's credit report. Credit mix determines 10% of a consumer's score.
4. Debt ratio: It equals combined monthly debt payments divided by gross monthly income.
5. Foreclosure: Foreclosure refers when a borrower prepays the outstanding loan amount before the scheduled equated monthly instalments.
6. Settlement: When a debt is settled by the applicant, it is updated in the credit report to show a status of ‘Settled’ or ‘Paid Settled’.
7. Paid collection: An account that went into collections due to delayed payment.
8. Thin credit file: This means a person does not have a credit history to produce a credit score. Having a thin file can make it difficult to get credit or pre-approved loan.
9. Voluntary Surrender: If the applicant is unable to make the loan payment (e.g. for a car), the lender takes back the vehicle.Voluntary surrender is viewed negatively by most lenders, and may have a negative impact on the applicant’s credit score.
10. These are some of the commonly used terms used by credit score online companies. Hope these jargons come handy to most applicants.

Meanwhile, for more information log on to https://creditsscore.in.

Is it healthy to check credit score frequently?

It is always a good habit to keep reviewing one’s credit report to ensure everything is fine. Even consumers with high credit scores must be diligent about maintaining their score and avoiding small credit mistakes that cause significant damage. Probably, the applicant may come across a neglectful account which could be pulling him down, or he may find an error on the credit report, or even worse, he could discover a fraudulent activity.

It is important to understand that the credit score is the applicant’s credit behaviour reflection and has a significant impact on the future dealings.  However, certain misconceptions are afloat among consumers regarding checking credit scores and one of them is whether it is ‘ok’ to check credit score. In this blog, we tell you why it is important to check credit scores at regular intervals and why it is important to monitor credit scores for any fluctuations that signal red flags in your credit behaviour. In addition to this, it is the right of the consumer to be proactive about managing and reviewing his credit health.

Surveys in the recent past reveal that of people who check credit score 12 or more times a year are almost twice as likely to improve their credit score as those who checked their score only once. Those who checked their credit score most often were most likely to report improvements to their scores.

The applicant’s credit report provides information for lenders about his payment strategy, his current and past credit mix, and whether his accounts are (or have been) in good standing. This information can help determine the terms the applicant is offered when he seeks new or more credit. Of course, a specific score doesn’t guarantee that the applicant will be approved for credit or get the lowest interest rates, but knowing where they stand may help them determine which offers to apply for.

Legally, the applicant is entitled to a free credit report once a year. The applicant can also make use of free ‘check credit score’ websites. Also, there are some credit score providers that can be approached to help the applicant know his credit scores after paying a monthly subscription fee.

However, reviewing credit scores could be a lengthy process. The applicant needs to request credit bureaus for his credit scores which could be availed right within just a few minutes.  

So, let us remember that regularly scanning of credit score help encourage the applicant to improve it. Thus, the applicants can go ahead with checking credit scores as often as they like as they have nothing to lose and tracking the progress over time will give them more insight into what’s affecting their credit.

For further information, log on to https://creditsscore.in.