you need to freeze your credit and i'm
going to show you how to freeze your
credit for free
because you need to freeze your credit
report
so no new accounts can be opened such as
loans or credit cards there's so much
personal data out there that's already
been leaked
where your information can just be used
to get a loan or a credit card the only
thing you can do to protect yourself
against identity theft
is to freeze your credit report now
freezing your credit report is different
from
freezing your credit score because you
can't freeze your credit score
only the report your credit score will
function as
normal even if your credit is frozen and
freezing your credit just protects you
from identity theft
freezing your credit is completely free
no matter what
the credit bureaus want you to think
experian
equifax and transunion some of the
websites
kind of lead you down a path thinking
like hey i think i have to pay for this
service
so i can freeze my credit but no it's a
legal requirement
for these credit bureaus to allow
consumers to
freeze and unfreeze their credit for
free and that's why
in this how to freeze your credit for
free guide
we're going to walk through the entire
process of freezing your credit with
experian
equifax and transunion but before we
jump into that
i want to tell you to never pay for
credit monitoring credit monitoring
doesn't do
anything credit monitoring is useless
they'll just tell you
if there's any activity on your credit
report just so you feel safer
now if your credit report is frozen then
nothing can happen and you're safe
anyway credit monitoring is like
extra insurance that you absolutely
don't need
and they charge like anywhere between
five to twenty dollars a month
just for credit monitoring so i just
wanna say
do not pay for that service because this
is how
credit monitoring works let's say you
don't have your credit frozen and
someone
applies for a credit card let's say it's
you if it's you
you still get a notification saying hey
someone applied for
a credit card on this date and with this
bank
now if it wasn't you they'll still say
the same thing
the credit monitoring does not stop
people from using your credit
so you're still screwed all credit
monitoring is doing is saying
hey something happened and that's it
they're not stopping anybody
and then it's still up to you to close
that account
and freeze your credit so all you really
have to do is freeze your credit and not
give them
any more money especially equifax
equifax
kind of screwed a lot of people in 2017
where they just leaked everybody's data
so don't give them don't give them any
money and
another thing is once you have these
accounts opened with these
three credit bureaus uh make sure you
opt out of their mailing offers because
they're just gonna
email you with like oh your credit's
good hey apply for these credit cards
because they get a cut of that so that's
how that works they get a commission
when you sign up for a credit card
through their platform
and that's kind of how credit karma and
credit sesame work
and the majority of the money made being
on these platforms is
selling you credit cards or selling your
data
before we get any further into this
video i'd appreciate it if you like and
watch the whole thing
well actually you don't have to watch
the whole thing but if you do i'd
appreciate it
and the last 10 minutes of the video is
going to be me
interviewing my friend mario who had his
identity stolen and the steps he had to
take to recover
his identity get a new credit score and
rebuild his
credit so that is a horror story of
an extreme situation where your identity
is stolen
and you have to rebuild from scratch it
is a very painful
and long process to get all this cleared
up
and the easiest thing you can do is to
freeze your credit report
negative points to freezing your credit
so if you want to freeze your credit
it's going to take you
one hour to set up accounts with equifax
experian and transunion now that's
pretty much it you're going to spend an
hour of your day setting up your
accounts and
freezing your credit now the next
negative point is
10 minutes so it's going to take you 10
minutes
to temporarily unfreeze your credit or
completely unfreeze it
in the event that you want to apply for
a loan
or credit card so it's really not that
inconvenient so once you have your
credit frozen
you can choose two things you can choose
to either completely unfreeze it
or you can choose to temporarily
unfreeze it and then you can set a range
of dates
for any amount of time up to a year if
you like so if you're applying for
a home mortgage you might want to
unfreeze your credit for like a month
if you're applying for a credit card you
might want to unfreeze your credit for
like two days
and when you unfreeze your credit that
kicks in within
15 minutes to an hour so you might want
to wait an hour
to apply for that credit card or loan
after unfreezing your credit
now let's start off with experian
because they are super shady and i want
to show you how to
freeze and unfreeze your credit for free
with
experian because they're gonna try to
charge you so now that we're at the
experience site you're gonna have to set
up an account that won't take too long
and make sure you don't pay for any
services after your account is set up
uh we're gonna sign in i'm signing into
my account now
[Music]
welcome back signing to your account so
as soon as i logged into my account
experian
is trying to take advantage of me by
trying to charge me 25 a month
for experian premium credit works
now you don't need that don't pay for it
but anytime you log
in they immediately bring you to a
billing page where you can put your
credit card number
and proceed with the order this is a
recurring 25
a month and you get the first seven days
for free now
don't do it i really don't like experian
doing this because it's very
manipulative
and people might think they have to pay
for credit monitoring service
just to log into their experian account
because as soon as you log in it's like
hey what's your credit card number
so to bypass this all you have to do is
scroll down and hit
no keep my current membership and now
that we're at the
real experian home dashboard for my
account you can see my credit score
with experian is 7.69 basically
anything over 750 is excellent credit
and there you're it's not going to make
a difference
like uh i still get denied for credit
cards but that's because i had
a lot of credit cards and i kind of
abused the system there
and that's okay now moving on to
business credit cards
but let's move on to freezing your
credit with experian
and we go up here to reports and scores
then we have to hit
experian credit lock now this is another
upsell technique by experian to try and
get you to pay for their service
so you see this big button here upgrade
to lock your file
so okay upgrade to lock our file zero
dollars is due i was like oh it's only
zero dollars
but that's for the first seven days and
if we look closely at the details see
seven days without charge
you will be charged 24.99
a month for your membership that is very
manipulative
and i really hate experian for doing
this because i'm sure
there's people who have been paying for
this service who think they have to pay
for experian
just to freeze their credit you do not
so if we go back here to the experian
credit log
page there is a way to freeze your
credit for free
with experian it's this really small
button
under that big button that says experian
credit lock
is a separate service from security
freeze
they function exactly the same so we
have to click
this button here experian freeze and
then it brings us to the real
security freeze page and here this is
where you can actually add
a freeze to your experian credit report
or you can remove
or temporarily remove your freeze now
when you freeze your credit with
experian
they're going to give you a pin code or
you're going to generate one and you
have to save it
otherwise it's going to be very
difficult for you to unfreeze your
credit later and you'll just have to go
through
all the steps of verifying your identity
again
so if we select add a security freeze
you can freeze your own credit report or
you can even freeze your
child's report if you have a a minor or
anything
so to freeze your credit with experian
you just have to click add a security
freeze
freeze my own credit file and then it
brings you to this page where you have
to fill out
all your personal information and you'll
also be required to generate a pin
now when you unfreeze your credit you're
going to have to know this pin
otherwise you're going to have to go
through the entire security process
again
and to unfreeze your credit with
experian it's the same thing you go to
experian credit lock
security freeze remove or lift a
security freeze
and then you just have to fill out this
page put in your pin number
and 15 minutes after filling out this
report you'll be able to apply for
credit cards or
loans now you can choose to make the
freeze temporary or
permanent i highly recommend temporary
because your credit report should always
be frozen
now if you pick temporary you can choose
a range of dates
for when you want it unfrozen so if it's
just applying for a credit card you
might want it unfrozen for like
a day or if you're planning on applying
for a lot of credit cards make it like a
week or something
moving on how to freeze your credit with
transunion
all right to freeze your credit with
transunion it's the same thing you have
to create a transunion account first and
then you'll be able to
freeze your credit report and manage
that freeze so you can temporarily
unfreeze it if you need to
now we're at the transunion home page
you just go to member login
credit freeze log in here then your user
information
right now you can see my credit report
is frozen
you can either remove the freeze that
completely removes it or you can
temporarily lift the freeze
i'm gonna hit temporary and look how
easy this is all you have to do is
select your start date and then you all
you have to do is select your end date
and hit continue i'm not going to
unfreeze my credit right now
but it's really that simple and between
the three credit bureaus transunion
equifax and
experian transunion does the least
upselling of trying to manipulate their
customers into thinking they have to pay
for a service
and i mean you could still pay for
services with transunion because that's
how they make money
but they are the least abusive now
moving on
to equifax so equifax has like
three different things when you log in
so we're going to equifax.com
you're going to want to set up an
account so you can log in
there's my equifax equifax lock and
alert you're going to want to go to my
equifax they come up with these
other ones just so they can upsell you
on their nonsense so don't fall for that
so you'll have to go to my.equifax.com
and then you'll have to set up an
account if you're like me
and your account setup fails you're
gonna have to call equifax during their
business hours
now the call only takes 10 minutes but
it's
very inconvenient just make sure you do
it so you can finalize your account
process
now i think they just do this so they
can talk to you
they can upsell you but don't fall for
it
don't pay for any of their services
equifax is the
company that leaks all your data in 2017
so they paid you off 125 dollars for
leaking all your personal data and
that's if you
made sure to opt in and they did not
make that an easy
process let me know in the comments if
you did get that 125 dollars
because good for you all right that was
a tangent and we're getting back into
the equifax site
so after you set up your my equifax
account that's the free one
you'll be here at the my equifax
homepage welcome daniel
echo fax score question mark out of 850
we can get our free credit score gotta
agree to the terms okay let's do it
let's let's see my equifax score
subscription free
as long as it's free they're not
collecting my credit card info i'm gonna
trust them on this they're probably
gonna use my personal data i probably
just gave that away
but let's see what my equifax score is
live
from the website and my equifax credit
score is 830
out of 8.50 that is really good and
i do a lot of shitty stuff so right here
on the right all you have to do to
freeze your credit score with equifax is
hit
place a freeze your equifax credit
report is not frozen
place a freeze again
and then another another opt-in uh
you're about to place the security
freeze on your equifax credit report
before you submit the
yes place a freeze you have successfully
placed a security freeze on your equifax
credit port
that's it that's it super easy now i'm
done and if i want to unfreeze my credit
report with equifax all i have to do is
come back to the my equifax page
and manage my freeze your equifax credit
report is frozen
manage or freeze again temporarily lift
the freeze so you can permanently
remove it which doesn't make sense you
don't really need to do that
but what you should do is temporarily
lift your security freeze
because you can set a start and end date
all right mario
please share your experience with uh
what happened when your identity was
stolen
if you know how it was stolen and the
things you had to do to
get it back yeah i found out it was
stolen when i applied for a job
in the i was filling out it asked me if
i had ever been
uh convicted or a crime or arrested and
i hadn't
so i clicked no and then they processed
my paperwork and then they came back to
me and asked me
why i was lying on the application
process
it said that i had a criminal history
and that i had warrants out for my
arrest
in lancaster california i had never ever
been to california in my life
i was born and raised in texas still in
texas
and i had no idea what the hell they
were talking about
so um yeah they said uh
you're gonna have to figure this out uh
they still managed
to hire me but i knew this was a problem
i had to solve
so i called uh i think they gave me a
phone number i did some digging
or i can't remember this was several
years ago but i
talked to the uh an office one of the uh
the courthouse
and they said this is something that's
not gonna be resolved over the phone
i'm gonna have to resolve this in person
so i had to
drive all the way from texas
uh over to lancaster
oh my god yeah and the only reason i
drove is because
we have we missed our flight we thought
you know whatever let's just
let's just make a trip out of it let's
just drive so we went all the way to
lancaster
and uh once i was there
uh i met with a judge and the judge gave
me a little piece of paper
that said hey well if you're ever picked
up
keep this paper on you at all times and
you know this basically clears you up
of you know of this warning
but that's about warning this was a much
much bigger issue
as i learned it turns out that my social
security number
was how this is how social security put
it to me that the number was being
shared
uh throughout the several years that
this
uh problem happened you know was
happening
i found out more and more new
information throughout i didn't get all
the information all at once
somebody else from some other department
would tell me fill me in on something
and it was just a collective it was uh
i dealt with this for about eight years
until it's finally resolved and it got
results quick
it was simply just a matter of somebody
at the social security office saying
oh you know what i'm just going to give
you a number and that's it
and it's very hard to do that yeah i
know they don't want to give out new
numbers
this this was a nightmare that drove me
to tears
many times it was a nightmare that would
never end
apparently since i lived in texas i
should have never had the number that i
had
that was a mistake they made so
then they said your number isn't stolen
it actually never
should have belonged to you to begin
with so
although i honestly think they were just
covering that
and i honestly think the number was
stoked yeah but
whatever that's neither here or there i
just wanted a resolution
so they said you're gonna have to
provide us
all the paperwork and everything you can
dig up
to show you live your entire life in
texas to show us who you
are so i have to dig up all my school
records all my birth records
of all dental records all my doctor
records
grades everything diplomas
uh certificate everything and then
do all that and then provide copies of
that to the social security office
and then even like that there was always
somebody who told me it wasn't
enough oh my god there was always
something missing or something more that
they needed
so when you're an adult
in your mid-30s it is incredibly
hard to track down that kind of sources
yeah those kinds of those kinds of uh
you know paperwork and grades i mean
who's keeping grades
right you'd have to physically go to
that school and get a copy
if they have it on file and it's
probably not digital so it'll take them
a long time to find it if you're
not going to do it for free yeah somehow
miraculously i don't know why they had
them oh
that's amazing i had to call my mom
because now
now since i was dealing with this uh
headache head-on i was now living in
california
i loved it out here moved out here so it
was easier for me
to just stay here and make a life here
but
uh i had to be on the phone constantly
with somebody in texas and then
communicate to somebody or my mom or
any relative to see if they could go
down to uh
some courthouse or some school to see if
they can pick up those records
that was a pain that was a real pain yes
and then
after you resolved all of that you got a
new social security number
and yes that just meant you were a brand
new person
with less than perfect credit yeah zero
no you're starting back at zero which
somebody told me
uh it was it would have been better if
you just had your shitty credit
with uh your old number because starting
back at
zero is actually worse but
i actually managed to wipe out stuff
that i would that was on my credit that
wasn't even mine
like doctor bills i just got on the
phone and yelled at people
and managed to get that credit off uh
uh x-ray uh you know
things is a lot of weird stuff it's like
how is this this isn't
i didn't get x-rays what is this i just
talked to somebody and they're like oh
i'm sorry and somehow that got removed
years later i had my uh paycheck garnish
or unpaid houses board
i don't have any kids yeah oh man
somehow this guy
was not paying his child support yeah
and since my number
is linked to it they started garnishing
my paycheck oh my god oh yeah
support this other mario was an
yeah and if i wasn't making very much so
that that hurt imagine not getting
your paycheck yeah it's something you're
getting for 12
and then you need it to like survive
yeah
oh that's rough well how how's your
credit now
oh oh great yeah
i got one of those uh
starter build your credit backup cards
from bank of america
right the secured credit card took your
credit card
yeah and if you manage to just you know
use it maturely
you know you slowly start you know
accumulating better credit
and that's you know how i've been doing
it
and well from then and then eventually
it led me to i remember i was filing my
taxes and at the end of
filing your paperwork it asked digitally
online and no one asks you if you want
to
apply for a credit card so i figured why
not let's see what it says
yeah uh somehow i pass and i applied for
a credit card
and i've been able to just
you know rely on that and recently i got
my credit increased
after 30 straight payments of not
missing
uh minimum balance and paying on time
and everything i managed to grow my
credit
that's a long time though that's 30
months that's two and a half years
something like that yeah
so wow that's great i'm glad you're
you're doing much better now
but oh my god they stole an identity
and yeah after you told me your story
like i remembered your story
and then i was like um it kind of
freezes my credit
yeah and and now it's frozen it's always
frozen unless i need to apply for a
credit card
i i would never want to relive that that
was awful
and it doesn't feel like anything but no
one is trying to help you everyone's
just trying to
deal with you to get you they're just
trying
everyone at the social security office
was just trying to get through their day
as quickly as possible and it's just
like
muscle memory it goes oh well here's
your problem you're always going to deal
with someone you
yeah let's go well here's what you have
to do you need to get us your history
because i have my history i just
provided it
yeah i want to stay i want to know where
we're at and he goes oh well
that's not that's not for me to say or
something or just
you're gonna have to fill out this form
because i already filled out that form
it was just and then it's on to the next
one it's
it's trying to get through you as
quickly as possible to get to the end of
their day
yeah and you never feel like no one's
ever going to sit down and
with you and be like oh man and listen
to your story
uh on luckily one person
did one person managed to say
sit down and be like oh that's horrible
oh that's really good that someone helps
he goes yeah i can fix this and in fact
let me write a letter and stamp it
and give us uh and actually like a fish
put our official stamp on it
saying we up oh man they don't do
that they
really rarely do that no no they don't
do yeah
so i framed that letter
that's good so yeah luckily they sat
down saying hey we're gonna give you a
new number in
everything i mean magically i felt like
like a load of bricks was lifted off my
back
everything was better
oh and that is a very
good uh what do you call it a uh
horror tale something to teach people
like hey
freezer's credit don't let someone steal
your information
so you need credit in order to get an
apartment
yeah is your credit frozen now
uh right well i'm still i'm living with
my girlfriend right now so
uh i live with her in her house well you
should freeze your credit it might it
might happen again
because when you freeze your credit
you're freezing your credit report
your credit score still functions as
normal credit report just means no one
can take out any loans no one can any
open any credit cards that
you don't authorize and you can always
unfreeze your credit temporarily if you
need to apply for something
and it's free that's what this video is
gonna i'm gonna make it's about how to
freeze your credit for free
and the one reason that will absolutely
inspire you to freeze your credit is
mario story
hey you made it really far into this
video if you did
thank you very much consider hitting
that like button and i hope
you got your full value for today this
has been full value dan