'Tis the season for fraud

'Tis the season for fraud

Public Service Announcement: 'Tis the season for fraud.

Across the University System, we see a large uptick in fraudulently opened credit cards, lines of credit and bank accounts using what we suspect is information compromised years ago and is still being shopped on the dark web. As best we can tell, much of the information being used is at least three years old and may be 10 or 11 years old.

If you haven't put a credit freeze in with all three credit bureaus, please consider doing so immediately. Freezing your credit will prevent you and hackers from opening lines of credit in your name. There is a dark web, and compromised information is constantly shopped there. Once your SSN is compromised, assume that it'll always be out there.

The three credit bureaus that you need to apply a freeze on your credit are: Equifax (www.equifax.com), Trans Union (www.transunion.com) and Experian (www.experian.com).

*Note: With your credit frozen, when you need to apply for credit, you'll "thaw" your credit at those bureaus, usually for a few days, and then it'll automatically revert to frozen.