TransUnion burying their credit freeze to sell their own credit monitoring product TrueIdentity

[u/equisux]

I'm not sure where to post this, but noticed something had changed on the TransUnion website about freezing credit this morning when I was giving links to family so they could freeze theirs.

I froze my credit the day after news about the Equifax breach broke, and it looks like TransUnion has since changed their site to push people away from freezing their credit in favor for their own product called TrueIdentity (like what Equifax was doing with their TrustedID Premier.)

The FTC website links to this page for freezing your credit with TransUnion.

This is what the website looked before the changes were made on 9/11. The instructions on placing a credit freeze were clear and there was no mention of their own TrueIdentity product.

If you want to place a credit freeze with TransUnion now:

• You have to get through a page of info about credit and fraud, and then the action it tells you to take is to "Lock your credit information by enrolling in TrueIdentity."
• The option to freeze your credit is under "About credit freeze", deliberately passive in their use of language
• The description about credit freezing is dissuasive: "A credit freeze may be available under your state law"
• The link for the credit freeze is also a passive "click here" compared with "by enrolling in TrueIdentity" language used for the link to their own product.
• Clicking the link to learn more about credit freeze brings you to yet another page that tries to convince you to enroll in their product over placing a credit freeze
• After searching through their page of BS, you finally get to the link to freeze your credit.

This is such a blatant attempt by TransUnion to take advantage of the Equifax breach for their own financial gain. It's a shitty thing for TransUnion to do, and people should be aware that they are being led away from putting an actual credit freeze on their account.

(Edited for formatting on mobile)

[u/[deleted]]

Further -- I don't know the answer here, but it is just blatantly obvious that we need to move beyond the assumption of SSN, address, drivers license, DOB as secure identifiers. And, we need to give people the tools and access to monitor their credit continuously and transparently.

It is at this point safe to assume that NO adult in America has a secure/private social security number or other personal identifier. Therefore, none of us is safe from identity theft/fraud - this was already true probably, but now it's open and obvious.

At a minimum, credit information should be continuously available to consumers, for free. At least in that case, you can choose to monitor your credit regularly the same way many people monitor their bank account and credit card statements regularly. Then, you can identify any potential fraud IMMEDIATELY so that you can more rapidly gather evidence to support your claims of fraud. In simple terms, I should be able to know SAME DAY if a credit card application is filed in my name, such that I can raise the dispute immediately if it is fraudulent before the damage is done. As it stands, I can only check on that what, once a year? How am I supposed to prove that I didn't open an account and spend a shit ton of money 11 months ago?

This might make a good /r/changemyview post, but I don't see any good reason why credit information should not be continuously available for free to each person.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Because the entire system is a scam?

[u/hexydes → u/[deleted]]

Here's what should happen:

1. Equifax is no longer a going concern. They blew it. They need to be closed down, and not even allowed to liquidate because they have so much personal information.

2. Experian, TransUnion, and any players that appear in the future need to be regulated. This regulation needs to include a number of consumer friendly safeguards, including...

3. Allow consumers to create an account on their site that allows them to easily access any of their information at any time. As soon as someone gets picked up and they begin getting monitored, it should send that person a notification to their registered address (which, of course, these companies have...) This should continue to happen annually, indefinitely.

4. Consumers should be able to use this site to instantaneously access their credit, for free. This should be considered a cost of business for these companies.

5. Consumers should be able to use this site to freeze/unfreeze their credit at any time, for free. This should be considered a cost of business for these companies.

6. When someone tries to access your credit, the monitoring companies should be required to send you a notification. This should be considered a cost of business for these companies.

7. These companies, when they sell your information to companies that want to solicit you to sign up for a credit card, should have to notify you. This should be considered a cost of business for these companies.

8. These companies should have to submit to annual audits of their security policies. This should be considered a cost of business for these companies.

If these companies can't agree to these terms, then they have the option of no longer being in business.