I submitted my freeze requests to all three agencies and received 9 identical "rejections." The short story version is that since none of my children have been victims of id theft, there is no record of them in the "system". Therefore no record requiring a freeze exists.
TransUnion The TransUnion letter (the most helpful of the three) said they "were unable to locate the above-referenced individual's credit report. Therefore, we are unable to add a protective statement to the credit report." They suggest I send another request in writing and include, "a certified and verifiable birth certificate and a copy of the minor's Social Security card. Upon receiving this information, we will take the necessary steps to protect this individual's identity."
Experian The crazy form returned to me from Experian had a series of boxes and instructions to match. Sort of an "if>then" statement from my old Boston University computer programming class. In this case, my "IF" statement was "If you want us to search our database to see if we have information on your minor child". The "THEN" statement was this gobbledy gook that made it seem I hadn't already sent in a written request, a letter with the necessary information and so forth: "Please send us:
- a written request for the report
- a letter with all of the information completed
- a copy of a government-issued identification card such as a driver's license, State ID card, military ID card, etc
- proof of your address (such as a copy of a utility bill, bank or insurance statement, etc that shows your name at your current mailing address)
- a copy of your child's birth certificate
- a copy of your child's Social Security card
Equifax The letter from Equifax was fairly useless. They just told me to send a copy of my child's birth certificate and a copy of their Social Security card or a document from the Social Security Administration that shows the child's Social Security number. They don't explain what, if anything, sending these valuable pieces of information would gain me.
I have to admit, at this point I'm relieved to know there isn't any credit system record of my three children. And I'm not really interested in going to downtown Los Angeles to the Recorder's office to get official copies (at $17 apiece) of my children's birth certificates. Only TransUnion specified a "certified copy" so perhaps I could just mail in a xerox of the ones we have in the fire-safe box at home to the other two agencies. Something tells me that's not gonna fly. Naturally, there isn't a phone number on any of the letters to just ask someone.
I'd love to hear from anyone who has gone through all these steps to at least put one freeze into place for a child. I really wish Congress would step matters up to make this a workable system for a caring parent. With id theft involving minors the fastest growing type, we need to figure out a way to get this stopped!