I – a stranger on the Internet – recommend keeping all three credit bureaus frozen, and only thawing when opening a new trade-line. The dumbos at CNBC seem to agree:
There are pay services to do that, but what self-respecting LH wants to pay? We’re the product, not the customer.
- Experian: Freeze or Unfreeze Your Credit File for Free - Experian
- Equifax: Consumer Registration
- Transunion: https://membership.tui.transunion.com/tucm/orderStep1_form.page?
You do NOT have to subscribe to any kind of monthly service in order to freeze your credit bureaus. Thanks to @neverhaveleased for finding the FTC link confirming:
If I recall correctly, one of them (TU?) may ask to charge a credit card a nominal fee ($1) to verify you the first time, but it is not a subscription and you will not be charged to lock and unlock.
If you are applying for a new trade-line, I usually ask the search engine which bureau to unlock. For instance:
For credit monitoring, I have two services, neither of which I pay for:
- TransUnion True Identity
- Mastercard Identity Protection - included with one of my cards
In the very worst case, if you unlock the wrong bureau, you will immediately receive an alert from your credit monitoring of which bureau they attempted to pull, you can unlock and ask them to try again.