Will a fraud alert affect my credit score?

[tk149]

I received a letter from a school that I attended 10 years ago. The letter stated that a portable hard drive containing my name and Social Security Number was stolen. The school recommends that I put an "Initial 90-day Fraud Alert" on my credit report, and offered to pay for one year of credit monitoring.

Would this adversely affect my credit score? I am going to make an offer on a new house this week, so I am really concerned about this.

 

[BigJ]

No.

It will induce further screening of any and all credit applications.

 

[lokiju]

According to Syrch, it did.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: lokiju
According to Syrch, it did.

http://www.experian.com/ask_max/max051607c.html

That's only speaking for one reporting agency, but I'm pretty sure all the others are the same.

 

[Syrch]

all that happened to me was i had to mail away my credit reports

 

[goog40]

If they allow you to pull daily credit reports, it can actually help your score. The reason is that if you flood your credit report with soft inquiries, eventually you will bump hard inquiries (which are the ones that negatively affect your score) off your report.

 

[KeithTalent]

From my experience it just means a few extra questions when you apply for something. A friend and I both applied for new credit cards recently and she got hers in the mail about 2 weeks after applying, but they had to call me and verify information first because they said I had an alert on my credit report. They just asked some simple identity verification questions then sent it out the next day.

KT

 

[tk149]

Thanks for the information, I feel better!