What is one of the benefits of placing fraud alerts on credit reports?

Placing fraud alerts on credit reports serves a critical purpose in identity theft protection. When a fraud alert is in place, it signals to creditors that they should take extra precautions when verifying the identity of anyone applying for credit in the victim's name. This is particularly useful in preventing the opening of new accounts because creditors are alerted to perform additional checks, such as contacting the individual directly. This added layer of scrutiny makes it more difficult for identity thieves to successfully open accounts under false identities.

The other options do not accurately reflect the function of fraud alerts. For instance, fraud alerts do not freeze assets, which would require a different action entirely, such as placing a credit freeze. They also do not prevent identity verification; instead, they enhance the verification process to reduce the risk of new account openings. Lastly, fraud alerts do not remove hard inquiries from a credit report; those are a separate aspect of how credit reporting works and typically remain on reports for a specific duration regardless of fraud alerts. Therefore, the benefit of fraud alerts primarily lies in their ability to alert creditors, significantly reducing the risks associated with identity theft.