My spouse recently got a notification that someone set up a Chime bank account with their social security number and address/email, even though we both have frozen our credit as of years ago. It turns out Chime: DOESN'T check credit for freezes, and DOESN'T require any email or phone number verification So anyone who has access to your stolen personal info (which most people have had leaked at some point) can set up an account, and spend money on your credit/your name, with NO protection for you. Super scammy. Can't believe this company (and others like it) are allowed to exist. What is the legitimate use for having NO credit check? Search Reddit for Chime scams and you'll see tons of people like us who also had this happen.
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So we’re not gonna talk about the useless “credit freeze”? Everything is a scam. Get used to it
The credit freeze works if the credit lender looks at it! We've prevented other scams that way. How can it work if the lender/bank doesn't check it though??
I’d think that a credit freeze means the credit reporting agency freezes all access to your credit report. Why do they let lenders access your frozen credit report and then just say “hey the user froze this so here’s the data but it’s up to you to not use it”.
Scammer could have done that with a traditional bank like BoFA too. Account opening requires an SSN but no one is going to hard query for opening a checking account. That'd be illegal if one does. Chime has credit builder option which is a secured credit card i.e. backed by money one deposits. This secured credit card helps build credit and that balance and payments will be reported to bureaus. One thing Chime and other fintechs/banks could do better is to do an instant email & phone verification.
Yea, chime is a favorite bank for fraudsters