There's good news for consumers who don't live in one of the nearly 40 states with credit-freeze laws on the books. TransUnion and Equifax have now agreed to allow non-victims of ID theft in such states to freeze their credit for a cost of $10 beginning Oct. 15. If that cost seems high to you, just think about how expensive it is to be a victim of ID theft. Of course, freezes already are free to those who've filed a police or FTC report about having their ID stolen. The benefit of a credit freeze is that even if a thief has your information they can't do anything with it. There's no word yet if Experian -- the third major credit bureau -- will follow the lead of TransUnion and Equifax and allows credit freezes in states where it's not already on the books. Experian just lost a lawsuit on appeal that concerned negligence in its credit reporting practices. The bureau has messed someone's credit up and had a false judgment against them. But it still wasn't corrected even when the person had documents to prove that Experian made an error. The three credit bureaus wield so much power. Their reports determine if we get credit, job offers and loans. They should be held accountable for accuracy, but unfortunately this is not yet the case.