The credit monitoring companies have your up-to-date contact information (and verified) when you put the freeze in place. Now, should a third party try to open an account, etc. in your name it should be blocked from happening and the credit monitoring company should contact you.

If a scammer tries to unfreeze or otherwise modify your account with them they should also contact you.

If/when they contact you or you request your account be unfrozen then they’ll use old credit history to confirm your identity. These are a series of three or four random questions that a scammer is unlikely to know. For example they might ask you what kind of car you purchased in 2005, then give you 4 options, like Ford, Honda, Jaguar, or BMW, and then also a “nine of the above” option. Then they might ask you which of the following street addresses you used to live at, and list 4 seemingly random addresses, one of which you might have lived at.

God damn it. F U C K!

Can't someone who has your SSN just thaw it themselves?

What does freezing your credit do, exactly? Is this still something someone should do if they don't even have any credit cards?

I've generally been pretty ignorant toward how credit reporting works.

Yes! And don't pay these assholes a dime for the privilege.

They're legally required to provide freezes for free, but two of them were trying to sell it as a service through misleading page links, last time I checked.

Don’t forget these companies didn’t exist before the late 80’s and credit worked just fine without them.

Everyone in the US should freeze their credit. Yes, it sucks that you have to unfreeze it to apply for new credit but it doesn't actually suck that bad. Everything is done through the websites.

Also what ever email you use, enable 2 factor authentication. I think using OTA is better because people have had their numbers sim swapped.

I tried to create an account with TransUnion but it said the identity check failed and won't create an account, I have no idea what to do now.

I’ve never had an account with these. Do I need to create an account with them to freeze my credits? And what kinds of information should I give / not give when I do?

I tried w equifax recently and kept saying not available at this time

Sample size of 1 is not indicative of anything though... several entire families I know were in it when I checked, even people that have been dead for decades, still had their name, address history, DOB, SSN and phone number.

Personally I consider this way bigger than previous ones because of how accessible the data is. I could never find the previous Experian one, but there's several sources for this one now, and seems to have a lot more information in it.

I wonder if you and your social circle skews younger.

While I wasn’t able to find myself, my spouse, or my younger siblings, I was able to find both my parents, their friends, and older family.