Today I went to establish my credit fraud alert like I said I would yesterday. As I was looking over Experian's site, I couldn't help but notice something interesting. An Active Duty Alert. That caught my since I'm currently Active Duty in the military. It said it was good for one year, which is 4 times what a fraud alert would get me, so I decided to dig a little deeper.
I found this site from the FTC. Sure enough, to support military members who may not always be able to check up on their credit, the FTC instituted a military fraud alert. It's pretty much exactly the same as an initial fraud alert, but it last longer. Something else I didn't know was that when you place a fraud alert or military alert with one company, the must report it to the other bureaus for you.
So I went ahead and clicked on the link and filled out the form. They asked me a few questions like they would when you request a credit report. I love the trap questions. "Our records show that you took out such and such a lone on this date. Who is the loan with?" Since I didn't take out a loan on that date it's an easy none of the above.
After I finished I saw this screen:
As you requested, an Active Duty Alert has been added to your credit report. This alert will expire after one year. As an added precaution, we have removed your name from prescreened offer mailing lists for two years.
As a convenience to you, we will notify the other national credit reporting agencies, Equifax and TransUnion, of your request for an Active Duty Alert. You should receive confirmation from them directly.
If you suspect that your identification information has been or could be used fraudulently, you can also add an Initial Security Alert to your credit report.
Cool .
Afterwards they let me view my credit report. I'm not sure if it counts as one of my free annual credit reports, or if it is because I placed the fraud alert. (Fraud also gets you a free credit report). I did end up disputing an old phone number of mine that I haven't had in years.
I also saw some other interesting things. There have been no hard pulls on my credit report for years. A hard pull is when you apply for a loan or new credit card or mortgage and the creditor looks a your report. A large number of those will bring your credit score down.
I saw many soft pulls on my credit as well. My previous annual credit checks by myself showed there. Prosper shows up as well, but not Lending club. For some reason Equifax did a check on what Experian had on me.
Now I can sleep a little better at night.
(image by Newright via flickr)
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