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Comment by bitbang | Hacker News Reader

I did this about 8 years ago, and have only needed to temporally unfreeze it 3 times. Besides the big 3, I also froze reporting from Innovis.

The only unforeseen hangup from frozen credit reporting I've run into is with car rentals. With a few exceptions, most car rental companies (at least in the US) run your credit. Everything else was pretty predictable.

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Do they refuse you rental?

Here in UK they verify address via utility bills, cross-check with drivers license (verified by gov agency, DVLA). They maybe only take card payments too, no cash?

I'd expect that to be enough, given they force you to take out expensive insurance, that must cover them, surely. What's the credit report going to get them at that point?

(It may be even stricter now, don't know.)

I just changed to one of the rental companies that doesn't require pulling credit.

> Besides the big 3, I also froze reporting from Innovis.

Why Innovis? Who typically uses their reports?

Same people that pull from the other 3. It's not as commonly used, though its usage is trending upwards from what I understand.

Can you call and it get it unfrozen immediately if it needs to be run?

To unfreeze it entirely it looks like it can take no longer than 3 days. Unfreezing it for specific parties it sounds like is less money and perhaps takes less time but that will depend on the company.

Source: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faq...

Law limits it to no more than three days. My experience has been that it mostly takes place within 12-24 hours.

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