A froze-everything buyer costs you four days you don't have. The bureaus you'll remember. LexisNexis and Innovis you won't, and your identity vendor pulls both.
Freezes are a federal right, free, and I'd freeze every buyer's files the day the loan funds. Until then, they're a scheduling problem, and the schedule is yours.
Send the buyer this list the week before you order the pull, with your pull date on it:
- Experian, Equifax, TransUnion — lift for a window that covers the pull plus three days either side. Online, one hour.
- LexisNexis — same window. This is the one that stalls identity verification and nobody thinks to lift.
- Innovis — same. Some vendors read it, some don't; lift it anyway, it's free.
Tell them to write the PINs down somewhere that isn't the recycling. Tell them the freezes come back on their own when the window closes.
Don't lift ChexSystems or NCTUE; you don't pull them. Don't tell the buyer to unfreeze permanently; that's how the next fraud gets through.
One email, five lines, a date. It's the cheapest four days you'll ever buy back.
Sources
- Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681c-1 — security freezes
- LexisNexis consumer security freeze
- Innovis security freeze
Every statutory citation in this article was checked against the source listed before publication. Nothing here is legal advice; if your situation has legal consequences, talk to a licensed attorney in your state.