Place a fraud alert and set a reminder

A scammer who has your name, your Social Security number and your address can ask for a credit card or a loan in your name. The bank or company that gives out the card or loan is called a lender, and the lender does not know the scammer from you. A credit file is the record of your loans and cards. A credit bureau is a company that keeps that record, and there are three credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

A fraud alert is a note on your credit file. The note tells every lender who reads the file to check who they are dealing with before opening new credit in your name. The alert is free. The alert lasts one year and can be renewed. You ask one bureau for the alert, and that bureau must tell the other two.

A credit freeze is a setting that stops lenders from seeing your credit file at all. A fraud alert lets lenders see the file and tells them to check first. You can have both.

The alert ends after one year. The alert does not renew itself, so set your own reminder.

Before you start

• About ten minutes.
• Your Social Security number.
• Your date of birth.
• Your current address.
• A paper calendar or a phone calendar that you actually look at.
• Page 3 of the workshop worksheet. Page 3 has a column called Renew by. If you do not have the worksheet, use a sheet of paper that you keep with your important papers.

Place the alert and set the reminder

You only need to contact one bureau. This page has steps for Equifax and for Experian. TransUnion's page would not open when this guide was written, so this page cannot say what TransUnion's website shows or asks for. Choose Equifax or Experian, and do only the part under that bureau's heading. After your bureau's part, go on to the steps under For everyone.

There are three kinds of fraud alert: the initial fraud alert, the extended fraud alert and the active duty alert. Identity theft is when someone uses your name and your details to open accounts or borrow money as if they were you. Anyone who has been affected by identity theft, or thinks they may be, can place an initial fraud alert. The initial alert lasts one year. Ask for the initial fraud alert. The extended alert lasts seven years. The extended alert is only for a person who has already been a victim of identity theft and who has an FTC Identity Theft Report or a police report. The FTC is the Federal Trade Commission, a United States government agency, and the report comes from the website IdentityTheft.gov. Do not choose the extended alert unless you have one of those reports, because the bureau asks for a copy of the report. The active duty alert is only for members of the armed forces on active duty.

Equifax

Equifax can place the alert only if Equifax already has an active credit file for you. Equifax's page, as we read it, does not say what makes a credit file active or how to check. If you are not sure, choose Experian instead.

1. Place the alert with Equifax. Create a myEquifax account or sign in if you already have one. A myEquifax account is your account on Equifax's website. Then place the fraud alert from that account. Equifax's page, as we read it, does not give the words on the screen for adding the alert, so we cannot say what to look for. If you would rather use the phone, call Equifax's automated line at 888-836-6351; an automated line is answered by a recording, not by a person. Now go on to the steps under For everyone.

Experian

1. Place the alert with Experian. Create an Experian account or sign in if you already have one. Then add the fraud alert from that account. The alert is placed in real time, which means the alert is on your credit file as soon as you add it. Experian's page, as we read it, does not give the words on the screen for adding the alert, so we cannot say what to look for. If you would rather use the phone, call Experian at 1-888-397-3742. Now go on to the steps under For everyone.

For everyone

1. Write down today's date and the renew-by date. On page 3 of the worksheet, write today's date. Then work out the date one year from today and write that date in the Renew by column. That date is the renew-by date. At Experian, you can renew the alert up to three months before the alert ends.
2. Set the reminder. Put an event in your calendar one month before the renew-by date, so that there is time to renew before the alert ends. Then tick Reminder set on the worksheet. The fifth yearly question on the worksheet asks: is my fraud alert renewed, and do my credit freezes still hold?
3. Check that it worked. The bureau confirms the alert. This page cannot say whether the confirmation comes on the screen, by email or by post. An initial alert also entitles you to a free credit report from each of the three bureaus; a credit report is a copy of your credit file. The confirmation tells you how to get the free reports.

What this does not do

• A fraud alert does not block applications for new credit. The alert can make it harder for a scammer to get credit in your name.
• A fraud alert does not cover charges on cards or accounts you already have.
• The bureaus tell each other when an alert is added, but not when an alert is removed. So removing the alert means contacting each of the three bureaus yourself.

If your screen looks different

Some bureau websites put the fraud alert on the same screen as offers of paid monitoring; paid monitoring is a service that watches your credit file for a fee. The fraud alert itself is free by law. If the page asks you to pay, go back and look for the free fraud alert, or place the alert by phone at the Equifax or Experian number above. TransUnion also places fraud alerts at transunion.com/fraud-alerts.

Sources

• Federal Trade Commission: Credit Freezes and Fraud Alerts, read on 21 October 2026.
• Equifax: Place a Fraud Alert or Active Duty Alert, read on 21 October 2026.
• Experian: Place a Fraud Alert, read on 21 October 2026.
• TransUnion: Fraud Alerts. This page would not open when the guide was written on 18 October 2026 or when the guide was checked again on 21 October 2026, so this guide gives only its web address and no steps for TransUnion.