The moment Ontario's new credit freeze became available this month, I locked my credit for free with both Equifax and TransUnion to see if it actually stopped someone from opening a credit card in my name.
The idea is simple. If someone steals your personal information and tries to open a credit card or loan in your name, through a credit freeze, lenders won’t be able to access your credit file while it’s frozen. No credit check means no new account. Equifax says that the Credit Lock feature is designed to help prevent fraud by stopping unauthorized access to your credit file.
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I’m not testing this just out of curiosity. In 2024, identity fraud was the most-reported type of fraud tracked by the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. Nearly 10,000 Canadians reported that someone had used or stolen their personal information. This kind of fraud can lead to criminals opening credit cards, taking out loans or even filing fake tax returns in your name.
Freezing my Equifax credit
First, I logged into my MyEquifax Canada account. I already had an account, although I had to reset my password before I could get in. You’ll have to make an account if you don’t already have one to freeze your credit.
Once I scrolled down the Home page that showed my credit score, I quickly found the new Credit Lock feature.
I clicked “Manage credit lock settings,” which showed the current status of my credit, and pressed FREEZE. Lo and behold, it showed that my credit was officially locked.
Now, my Equifax home page shows a yellow lock on the right to indicate the freeze. It only took a few clicks, and I immediately received confirmation by email that my Equifax credit file was locked.
If you’re curious about your credit report, you can check your Equifax credit report for free.
Freezing my TransUnion credit
This one was a little tricky. I went to the TransUnion Canada website and tried to create an account for an hour. I kept being pushed to a screen that asked for a subscription even though it should be free. I eventually lost my patience, succumbed and paid $24.95. I tried to go through customer service but since it was a holiday (Canada Day), I was fresh out of luck.
Interestingly, on July 1st, when the freeze was officially in effect in Ontario, the site still stated that only Quebec residents were eligible to lock their credit.
After finally logging in, the process continued to be nonintuitive. After clicking through nearly every menu option on the site, I accidentally discovered the “Go to dispute centre” button under Credit Report. Surprisingly, that’s where the credit freeze option was hiding.
That took me to a new page that looked like this. I pressed “Manage your credit freeze” here.
The next few screens told me what a credit freeze was and who it was available to. I pressed continue and landed here. Then I clicked “Freeze.”
Testing the credit freeze
Now, it was time to test if this actually worked. If I tried to apply for a credit card now, would the applications simply fail? Or would lenders find a way around the freeze? There was only one way to find out.
I purposely picked three very different lenders: a traditional bank I had never used, a digital bank and the bank where I already had an account.
First up, it was BMO’s CashBack Mastercard. I’ve never banked with them so I was interested to see if an institution completely unfamiliar with me would approve my application or not.
I applied around 1:30 pm and the rejection came in by email at 11:15 pm. What surprised me was that the bank never mentioned my frozen credit. It didn't ask me to unlock it or reapply after removing the freeze. It simply said that my application wasn’t approved, so I couldn’t tell whether the freeze was the reason for the rejection.
Next up, I tried a digital bank. I applied for Tangerine’s Money-Back Credit Card. Ended up getting the app to make the process faster.
Got rejected within a few minutes. Tangerine also left out the reason for my ineligibility.
Last up was the Westjet RBC Mastercard. I already bank with RBC so I thought I’d see if they’d just used my previous information to clear me for another credit card.
This was on July 7th. I still haven’t heard back.
Did the credit freeze actually work?
After trying all three credit card applications, I wanted proof that the freezes had done their job.
When a lender checks your credit as part of an application, it usually leaves a hard inquiry on your credit report. Too many hard inquiries in a short period can temporarily lower your credit score. More importantly, for this experiment, a successful hard inquiry would suggest a lender was able to access my credit file despite the freeze.
So I logged back into both Equifax and TransUnion and pulled my credit reports. Neither Equifax nor TransUnion showed a new hard credit check from any of the credit card applications I had submitted and my credit scores remained the same.
Now, will a credit freeze stop every kind of identity fraud? Probably not.
But after locking both of my credit files, trying three credit card applications and checking both of my credit reports afterwards, I’m convinced it’s one of the easiest ways to make life a bit harder for identity thieves.
