June 18, 2014

Will a credit freeze prevent my credit card company from increasing my credit limit?

Dear Consumer Ed:

If I place a credit freeze on my credit report, will it prevent a credit card company from increasing the credit limit on my credit card?

Consumer Ed says:

A credit freeze will prevent most parties from accessing your credit report or credit score, but it probably wouldn’t prevent your current credit card company from increasing the credit limit on a card that you obtained prior to putting the credit freeze in place.

Credit freezes, also known as security freezes, prevent credit reporting agencies from releasing your credit report or credit score unless you first remove the freeze by providing your password. There are, however, exceptions to this general rule.

One of these exceptions is for companies with which the consumer has a pre-existing account, contract, or debtor-creditor relationship for the limited purposes of reviewing the active account, or collecting the financial obligation owing for the account. Your current credit card company is an example of this. Therefore, your credit card company and its employees will be able to view your credit report for the purpose of reviewing your active account. Your credit provider would likely make a determination of whether to increase your credit limit from the information it gathers from this review. This exception also means that putting a credit freeze into place wouldn’t prevent your credit card company from increasing the credit limit on your card.

If you’d like to put a credit freeze into place, you should contact each of the three major credit reporting agencies:

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