First Step: TransUnion

     The first step that Sandy from Discover Card told me to do was call TransUnion and put a fraud alert on my account There are three major credit bureaus Equifax, Experian, and Transunion in the whose job it is to track our credit history and help define our credit worthiness to potential creditors. Why we need to have three is beyond me as it just makes everything more difficult and costly, but I guess that's capitalism so I prefer that to having a single bureau system or something managed by the government...
     I will discuss the other two bureaus later in the story, so I want to focus on TransUnion as that was my first call as directed by Sandy. The number 1-800-680-7289 is an automated system that is the only way TransUnion allows you to electronically apply a fraud alert to your credit file which is the first step you need to take. So after going through the prompts and entering in all of my information they then try to sell you on their credit monitoring service before they allow you to complete the call. It is an extremely long message that you have to listen to and then select (1) I want it or (2) I do not want. At this point I didn't know enough to figure out if I needed to pay a monthly fee for some service so I selected (2). I was then appalled by the second sales pitch using both scare and guilt to try to get me to buy their product again. It is another long message that I then had to hit no again. This made me sick to think of how many consumers they have scared into purchasing a service at a very vulnerable time and you know that the only reason they ask twice is because it must work. I will be filing a complaint with both the BBB and the FTC as I feel that in their message it makes it seem like in order to protect yourself you need to sign-up for their service which is false. It is completely free to put a fraud alert on your credit file and 3rd party companies are no longer able to do it for you so even if you pay for lifelock or similar service you still need to do this important step yourself.

Task Completed So Far:

1. Placed Fraud Alert on my TransUnion credit report (at least I think I have, but I didn't buy their service so I am not sure)