California Security Freeze Process
http://www.experian.com/consumer/help/states/ca.html

"Consumers in your state have the right to place a “security freeze” on their credit reports, which will prohibit us from releasing any information in their credit reports without their express authorization, except to those with whom the consumer has an existing account or a collection agency acting on behalf of the existing account, for purposes of reviewing (account maintenance, monitoring, credit line increases and account upgrades and enhancements) or collecting the account."

From the sounds of that, it may or may not work. We need data points.

theman2 said:01LX said:From the sounds of that, it may or may not work. We need data points.What exactly are you worried about? That a CLI could still result in a hard pull because of the existing relationship? I'm relatively certain this has been testing by win333 and others...

Exactly, we already know they can't put a new inquire when frozen(maybe a collection can, don't know) but they can only soft pull it for credit.

My freeze is the same as me telling experian, " I do not authorize any new credit) unless I give my code. So if a new request comes in without my code, then they know I did not authorize it.

In California EX get's you coming and going.

• $10 to freeze
  
• $10 to do a temp un-freeze
  
• $10 to freeze it back on temp basis
  
• $10 to permanently un-freeze.

Experian / California Freeze Procedures

Rorer714 said:Put a freeze on EX for the wife and me in December. Since the 1st of the year BOA did two hard pulls on her, both TU. Not sure if it was because of the freeze or if they changed who they pulled from. They always pulled from EX for both of us.

Did BOA pull for no good reason (e.g., just b/c they discovered that they no longer can pull [hard] from EX) or did it pull in connection with new account/CC application?

so what would happen if you apply for a New AMEX card since they always pull Experian? any ideas? sorry if I overlooked this if it's been discussed but my search found nothing

jevon90 said:so what would happen if you apply for a New AMEX card since they always pull Experian? any ideas? sorry if I overlooked this if it's been discussed but my search found nothing

They will either send you a letter saying they need to see experian or they will pull another Credit report. I did 15 apps in Nov. 07 and only Discover asked to see experian, I ment to call but I never did.

I just did my first application post freeze which failed. Credit secure shows no new inquires on any of the three CRAs. Discover apparently attempted to pull EX and stopped when they encountered my frozen report. The application status page shows 'application canceled'. This would have been my first first Discover card. I'll update this when I get the rejection letter and try to get them to pull another CRA.

win333 said:I tried AMEX and discover about 8 hours ago, they both tried to hit experian. I tried calling but so far it's a big fat NO. But CRAP1 worked (no limit yet) and Advanta worked (no limit yet).

Discover won't give much and AMEX sucks with thier A/A, so no big loss any way.Thanks. I just did a mini business AOR by applying for business cards from Chase, AMEX, Citibank, Advanta, Juniper, and Discover. All but one of the creditors that show application status online tried to pull experian! Hopefully some can be coaxed into pulling another CRA...
Anyhow, this is exactly why I did the freeze to begin with. With my luck (and the creditors I usually focus on), almost every inquiry is on EX. At least it won't hurt my credit score because the inqs didn't happen!

If anyone has suggestions of other banks to hit, I'm open to suggestions. Currently, I have B of A is on my list if I can find any decent cards, possibly Providian/WAMU, and CapitalOne. What am I missing?

win333 said:I'm trying to figure out if a creditor pulls experian, is there a chance that they'll pull a different 1 if you apply for a different card.I think some are random, some are different between business and personal departments, but the major determining factor is your location. For example, almost all issuers pull EX with me and I live in CA. Looking at other posts on FWF, I often see people in other states consistently get ings from other CRAs when they apply for the same cards that I do.

Unfortunately, your resident state/zip code is one of the harder things to change...

revheck said:Despite getting all the green for a good brainstorm, isn't the correct conclusion to this experiment that freezing Experian doesn't work? Most apps that pull Exp are getting denied. The only card you've managed to get approved, so far, is Advanta, which normally doesn't pull Experian anyway.Well, the prospects don't look great right now. I may still be able to convince the different issuers to pull other CRAs... and I still have a personal AOR and some bank/brokerage bonuses to go after before I'm done. It shouldn't be an issue with the bank/brokerage applications.

For people who, unlike me, aren't cursed with almost every issuer pulling EX, this would be an even better way to keep their EX report clean. Bumpage can take care of the others...