I believe it depends on your state. I'm in California and I had to pay $10 for freezing on Experian and TransUnion, although it was free for Equifax.

Same experience here (also CA), and I was able to freeze all of them online.

It's mildly interesting how different the experience was across the three. Experian gave me the choice between choosing a PIN and getting a generated one, Equifax just gave me a PIN, and for TransUnion I had to choose the PIN (shorter than for the other reports) myself.

How do you freeze them online?

Come on, that's really not hard to find out for yourself. But here are the links anyway:

https://www.freeze.equifax.com/ https://freeze.transunion.com/ https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html

ugh. even their 10 digit code they provide to unfreeze someone isn't very secure. It's simply todays date plus a 4 digit pin that moves up in the order that someone signs up. For example: 090817xxx1, 090817xxx2. So my wife and I are simply two numbers apart.

Jesus. I think you can provide your own. But yeah, when the user-facing bits are this bad, you know it's nothing but garbage below. I can't believe these companies have so much power.

It worse. It's not even a 4 digit PIN. It's the time in 24-hour format HHMM: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15205579

You and your wife just did it 1 minute apart...

I can't even imagine how something like that can be implemented. Even if you put the most junior developer on this, something so serious should have been reviewed by someone. At least do a quick search on stack overflow or something.

i filled out the experian form online for free:

https://www.experian.com/fraud/center.html#content-01

That's not a credit "freeze". It's just an alert system.

All the confusion in this thread is disturbing. If HN readers can't figure this out, the general public is totally screwed.

Experian freeze is here: https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faq... said:

"You'll need to supply your name, address, date of birth, Social Security number and other personal information. Fees vary based on where you live, but commonly range from $5 to $10."

So depending on where you live, you probably have to pay.

Fuck that, Equifax should offer free freezing for anyone affected by their breach. Charging for it is profiting from their own negligence.

Would love to hear a lawyer's take on this.

We all got two comments into this thread and decided literally anything is better than trying to deal with all the crazy legal theories and bullst going on in here.

I've just been skimming search result for lawyer... You're pretty much the only one actually asking for one...

So wait, you only need to provide the very same data that was just breached? So anyone can just freeze anyone else's credit now?

Edit: well, you have to pay with a credit card so it's traceable, so not that bad.

Well depending if you have the answer to the 4-5 security questions , like previous address ,car loan payment amount, or mortgage , stuff that you would only know. I don't know the full scope of the compromise, but someone wanting to use your info would not benefit from freezing it. If you forget your pin I'm expecting them to send it to the mailing address

Even if an attacker doesn't benefit, it's still possible for them to mount a denial-of-service attack. That could be very damaging. Or, they could use the threat of a DoS attack for extortion purposes.

I'm sure paying with a stolen credit card is no problem for somebody willing to steal your identity in the first place...

I thought all 3 were free to freeze but $10 to unfreeze

$10.83 in Texas for Experian

f no I'm not paying them anything

What state do you live in? Credit freeze rules vary from state to state.

I'm wholly ignorant to this but I am very curious. Why would it be like that?

Different state laws mandating different things.

Federal Law allows a fee, some states have passed laws mandating no fee, or no fee to freeze but a fee to unfreeze, etc

Is there a wiki page or government list that describes the rules for each state?

Here's one list: http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-free...

Experian has not accepted phone applications for a security freeze for a while now.