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Comment by LeoPanthera | Hacker News Reader

Experian is the only agency that doesn't allow you to lock your credit for free, only "freeze" it. The differences aren't immediately obvious, but locking can be undone (nearly) instantaneously, whereas un-freezing takes many days.

If the others can do it, Experian could do, but they treat protecting your identity as a revenue stream. Disgusting.

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unfreezing is instant, I have mine frozen and unfreeze it when I need to apply for credit without any problem. they just lie to make it sound less appealing.

Then explain why they also offer locking (for a fee), and what the difference is?

Freezing is always what you want, that's what they are required by law to provide. There is no law that says they can't also provide something similar and encourage people to pay for that, and that's what locking is.

I recently applied for a credit card and temporarily unfroze (thawed) my credit with all 3 bureaus a few minutes before I submitted the application and was approved.

I’ve never been able to figure out the difference and haven’t cared to dig much deeper. I use the freeze and have been able to unfreeze on the spot when needed (I.e. at the counter at a bank).

From what I could tell the lock is a dark pattern to charge for something that is free and (potentially) less effective than the freeze since, from my understanding, the freeze is regulated where the lock is not.

I ignore that part. I just know that I can instantly freeze/unfreeze. Just did it last week in fact, at all 3.

Locking costs money. Freezing is free.

Experian is the only credit agency where locking isn't free.

dark patterns...there's no reason to pay for locking

This is just another dark pattern. All you need is freezing, it’s instant to freeze/unfreeze and required to be free by law.

They just hide the option on the site and make it seem like you need to pay for “locking”. I end up having to use Google every time to actually find the page to unfreeze.

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