Brief explanation so were all on the same page.

In Part One we explained that a Credit Freeze was a legal process to minimize that amount of people that could legally look at your credit report file. It helps safe guard you’er credit by not allowing new lines of credit to be taken out by Identity Thief’s. This is helpful because Identity Thief’s can have the billed mailed to another address and you might never know about the fraudulent account until years later. In this world of wide spread identity theft this can be a major defensive tool. Another benefit is that you are less likely to receive credit card offers in the mail, since random credit card companies can’t run your credit anymore. These blank credit cards with your name on them sit around in your unprotected mailbox all the time, just waiting for criminals to steal them and rip you off. The one down side is that Freezing and Unfreezing your credit report can take several days. Some of the Credit Reporting Bureaus do allow you to allow a single potential creditor to look at your credit one time. I would highly recommend this option if its available to you.  

Sometimes people are at a point in their life when their apply for credit. Maybe you’re buying a house, a car or apply for credit cards. Credit Reporting Bureaus do offer a paid for service called a Credit Lock. It allows you the ability to download their app and lock and unlock it at will. This process is allot quicker as compared to Credit Freezing. The difference is that Credit Freezes are legal protection, Credit Locks are a product dreamed up by a Credit Reporting Bureaus to help fill a gap, but they offer no legal protection if something bad was to happen.    

People who have never applied for a credit card most likely you won’t have an account on file with the Credit Reporting Bureaus. But if credit has been taken out in their name then they might have an open account. So we recommend contacting the Credit Reporting Bureaus and checking just to make sure. It might be slightly harder to do given child safety laws and the fact that children don’t normally have files but still it’s worth the hassle. If your child is driving it might be useful for you to get them a gas credit card and slowly teach them the in and outs of having a credit card. Go over all the ways credit card companies attach additional fees to your account. You don’t have to be perfect, let them learn from your mistakes. It’s better than the alternative of them signing up for many credit cards their first day of college and then blowing them out with stock piles of debt.