I've long favored freezing at the three major credit agencies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) and have done so for a while now. It used to be much more difficult to do the thaw. There were automated phone systems in play and sometimes one of the agencies would require mailing in or faxing in additional proof, then the online sites became available and made things easier, but even then they would occasionally require additional proof as well.
Today, you can do the equivalent to a freeze at each of the major credit agencies via their mobile app. Just as many credit card issuers have done, they use the concept of locking and unlocking:
- Equifax: free to use, their app is "Lock and Alert"
- TransUnion: free to use, their app is "myTransUnion"
- Experian: the locking feature appears to be part of their premium plan which start at $10/month, although if you just use the free parts of their app, you can see a regularly updated credit score (FICO Score 😎 and their credit monitoring and alerts; to get the free freeze you still need to go to their website as listed in the article on the blog.
If anyone knows of how to get the Experian lock for free, I'd love to hear about it. Since locking has become available, I've now switched to using that instead of the classic credit freeze at Equifax and at TransUnion. Hopefully Experian will join the party and make their lock feature free as well.
Locks are not governed by federal law though, so if you want the most protection, you should still go with the security freeze. See this article: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/credit-lock-and-credit-freeze/
