Brian Nystrom
Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 5101
Location: Nashua, NH9/18/17 9:01 AM |
Freezes are not going to affect their business much.
This is not information that they "sell" in huge batches to companies; it's a service that they sell to entities that offer consumer credit. When consumers want to get new credit cards, rent an apartment, buy a car or a house, or even change jobs, they'll have to unfreeze their account for that potential creditor. They will, in turn, order a credit report from the credit bureau, which will charge them for it, just like they do now.
The only difference between that and the current system is the number of freeze/unfreeze cycles involved, which they will no longer be able to charge for if the new legislation passes. They will lose those fees, but there never would have been any fees if people didn't freeze their accounts, which most people did not. So, they're not losing that much there, either. There's probably some cost to the credit bureaus to process a freeze or unfreeze, but it may be no more than a few milliseconds of computer time.
Chances are that the credit bureaus will just raise the fees they charge for credit reports to make up for any losses.
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