 TITLE: What Is the Difference Between a Fraud Alert and a Credit Freeze? CONTENT: What Is a Credit Freeze?\n------------------------\nA credit freeze, or security freeze, is a more severe measure for protecting your credit file. Unlike a fraud alert, a security freeze prohibits potential new creditors (and others permitted by law to view your credit files or obtain your credit scores) from accessing your credit history unless you first lift the freeze.\nThere's not much reason to put both a credit freeze and a fraud alert in place, but if you did, no one would ever see the fraud alert until you removed the credit freeze. Access to your credit file is required for the fraud alert to be visible. END