To freeze your main credit reports refer to this post.
This post is about 2 other credit reporting agencies which I didn’t know about. The Innovis website is the shadiest official website I’ve been on. Nevertheless, I needed to access it in order to put a credit freeze on my credit which is held by this 4th credit bureau.
I had no idea Innovis was one of the credit reporting agencies, how many other ones are out there?
It gets even more dicey. The government’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) agency doesn’t even mention Innovis as one of the credit reporting agencies even though it most definitely is. I was able to confirm Innovis by referring to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
Oh, There Is One More…
Besides Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, and Innovis, there is also PRBC. It stands for Payment Reporting Builds Credit – clever. This company has a CEO and everything and collects your credit information just like the other 4 except it isn’t as frequently used as the other companies.
PRBC is supposed to be the kind of company where you report your own positive activities to help build your credit (??). What’s PRBC’s exact connection to the other agencies? Who knows. Since the FTC doesn’t mention them it’s hard to get the facts.
However, rest assured that all 5 of these agencies are part of the Fair Credit Reporting Act where all these companies originated from.
Freezing PRBC
You can’t freeze the PRBC reports. Their website does a weak job of explaining it or I’m not smart enough to understand it.
They claim that if you freeze the other reports then it’s adequate. So for now just be sure to freeze the other 3 main reporting agencies along with Innovis.
The Great News…
There is no way Equifax can know exactly which individual accounts were compromised and which weren’t. It’s not like there is one simple-to-read log of every data point that was accessed by the hackers.
As far as I’m concerned I’m a victim of identity theft until someone else can prove otherwise. This is great news because it means I no longer have to pay $10 to freeze or unfreeze my credit report.
Freezing Innovis Credit Report
Thankfully this was really easy and free! Go to the Innovis credit freeze page and enter your information and they will freeze your report without you having to confirm your identity (which is weird).
When it asks if you have been a victim of identity theft, answer “Yes” and you’ll immediately get a page saying that a freeze has been placed and a document will be mailed to the address on record.
One reply on “Innovis Credit Report Freeze”
The PRBC is under the Fair Credit Reporting Act , however, it only stores credit data from opt-in members. If you have never sign up as a member and have never shared your credit lines with PRBC, then they have no record of your info. No need for a credit freeze with them if that is your case.