What is a credit freeze?

A credit freeze prevents all third parties who are not exempt by law from accessing your credit files without your consent. Credit freezes may delay, interfere with, or prohibit the timely approval of your requests for credit if the creditor needs to access your credit files. This may include requests for such things as new loans, credit, mortgages, insurance, rental housing, employment, investments, licenses, cellular phone service, utility service, digital signature service, Internet credit card transactions, and extensions of credit at points of sale. If you wish to apply for a new credit account or establish some other credit relationship, you will likely need to either remove or temporarily lift the credit freeze. There is often a cost associated with setting, removing, and temporarily lifting credit freezes.