[Music]
hey Dustin Tibbets here financial
adviser with jazz wealth managers and
this is a quick series that we do called
Finn tips really quick tips help with
your finances personal finances
retirement whatever it may be feel like
what you see maybe hit the subscribe
button help us out or check us out at
jazz wealth calm we're financial
advisors well today's gonna be a really
short one for you just something I saw
that I thought you guys might be
interested in because it's creeping up
more and more largely because of the
deadlines on some of the rules but let's
talk about this have you ever heard of
freezing your credit well most of us
probably have it's where you go to the
credit bureaus and you say look I want
to freeze my credit and only I want to
be able to thaw my credit if I apply for
some kind of new credit well it's great
because what it means is you can
actually make sure that nobody applies
for new credit in your name while it's
frozen when you go buy a car or get a
loan of some kind you just unfreeze your
credit and that's the end of it well
thanks to Equifax who screwed up and
lost all of our data and had it packed
and all kinds of greatness they're back
a couple of years ago Congress said you
know what you have to make credit
freezes free to your customers that
really kind of hurt Equifax not because
they make money off the five or ten
dollars they charge you to set that up
but because the way that data is
actually sold see these are public
companies so we can look into their
financials and see how they make money
here's the thing these credit bureaus
like Equifax make the bulk of their
money actually selling your data to
other parties you ever notice how when
you pay off a credit card somehow you
get these great offers for credit cards
or as you pay down your credit card and
your score goes higher all of a sudden
there's all these transfer offers and
things like a free plane ticket if you
transfer over to us and things it's
because they're buying your data and
they know you're doing well or you're
doing poorly if you have low credit
you're getting those credit card offers
with annual fees and sort of the junky
ones that nobody should have and so they
make a lot of money off of that well in
a credit freeze not only do you freeze
your credit but you freeze the ability
for the credit
to sell your information you are also
protected under the new congressional
law that says any misuse of your data
now you can hold them liable for that
well that's a big problem for them so
what these credit bureaus are doing is
they said here's what we're gonna do
we're not gonna we're gonna offer credit
freezes but we're gonna go to credit
card companies and banks and other
financial institutions and we're gonna
say hey offer your customers a free
credit lock with one tap of a button you
can lock your credit and you can sell
this as a service as a value add for
your business and it's free you can just
have it well what the credit lock is is
it actually allows you to lock your
credit so nobody else can apply for
credit in your name but it allows the
bureau's to sell your data still so they
can go back to making money off of you
maybe you think that's good or bad
doesn't matter the real issue here is if
you choose the credit lock option that
you no longer can hold them liable for
misuse of your personal data so in my
opinion the credit lock while it is
certainly cool to just go credit locks
credit unlock to credit locked how often
do you need to do that right if you're
gonna go buy a car and get a car loan
then you take five minutes and unfreeze
your credit even if it takes a few extra
steps because it's not something you
need to do real quick it's not like
opening up Instagram and going boom it's
ready to go so big difference I want you
to consider freezing your credit not
locking your credit and be careful
because your credit card companies are
popping up all these ideas or all these
offers for you to do that and if you
look very closely it means that you
can't hold anybody liable for misuse of
your financial data well that's the
difference there between credit freeze
and credit lock if you're spotting that
and you see that what are you coming
across did you notice that in the fine
print did you fall for it and maybe you
should back out of that whole
arrangement there well let us know in
the comments below but if I helped you
in some way hit the subscribe button
that's basically all I have for you
enjoy the rest of your day
[Music]
why should you choose jazz wealth as
your retirement or long-term investing
service our portfolios are managed by us
not some faceless mutual fund manager
our private classes will teach you
everything about investing and getting
your dough straight best of all our
fiduciary standard means your best
interests comes before ours
[Music]