My husband passed away over a year ago, but I’ve been keeping his email account open to tie up loose ends. I was about to close it yesterday and discovered that his credit was still available.
I had frozen my credit at all three agencies but left his, thinking that it would disappear after he died.
The problem here is that our credit info was on each other’s report, since we co-borrowed, for example, home and auto loans. I started to wonder, then, if someone could access my information through our shared data and gather enough from it and elsewhere to steal my identity. Nobody that I asked could answer for certain if his open credit could help lead to my identity theft.
So I froze his credit yesterday. Considering how lax at least one of the credit reporting agencies has been in guarding our information, I felt it would be a good idea. Especially since older persons and widowed persons are often targets of financial scams.
You might want to freeze your credit, too. Even if you aren’t widowed. You can unfreeze it if you need to apply for a loan or new credit card. Be sure you do so at all three credit reporting agencies: Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. It’s easy to do online.
Be safe.