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Credit Monitoring Services for Your Personal Credit Report |
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Incidence of identity theft are on the rise and credit-monitoring services pledge to keep an eye on such frauds by monitoring your personal credit report. However, the only purpose that they can serve is to detect the theft early to minimize the damage to your
personal credit report. Most of these services are not comprehensive enough or easily affordable to recommend without reservation. Some of the problems are given below. 1) All the three bureaus are not checked Since all the three bureaus don't share information, your service could easily miss some problems reported at the other two, if they only check one. 2) They may not be timely Many services are not checking daily as they do so either weekly or even quarterly. Your personal credit report would therefore be out of date, as ideally you should know as soon as someone applies for credit in your name, or at least within 24 hours. 3) They're expensive TrueCredit, a service of credit bureau TransUnion, is the least expensive charging $10.95 a quarter (or $43.80 a year) for a weekly alert service and a personal credit report that's updated quarterly. Others could cost $50 to $120 which works out to about $200 a year for getting continual monitoring at all three bureaus. They do have some value Even with all their limitations, these services are still found to be valuable by some people. All such services now make up a $2.5 billion industry, according to a Harris Interactive poll commissioned by the Center for Social and Legal Research, a nonpartisan think tank. This is because identity theft in personal credit report now claims more than 700,000 victims annually, according to the FTC. The identity theft occurs due to either hijacking of your existing accounts, running up unauthorized charges, or using your personal information to open new bogus accounts in your name. Early detection is useful By detecting the theft early enough, you can prevent the thieves from opening more than one or two accounts, but that isn't guaranteed. Clearing up your personal credit report after identity theft is time consuming as it may take about 175 hours and $800 for the task. Various services are offered by the monitoring agencies and given below are what you need to know if you decide to choose credit monitoring. 1) Identity Guard charges $142.86 for the first year ($25.95 for the first three months, $12.99 a month thereafter) for daily monitoring of your Equifax personal credit report and a quarterly update of your personal credit reports at all three bureaus. It also has fraud-resolution services and $2,500 of insurance coverage with a $250 deductible. It also offers a credit score but it is of limited use as it is not the FICO score. 2) TrueCredit, offered by TransUnion costs $10.95 a quarter, or $43.80 a year. For an additional $4.95 a quarter, you can order a non-FICO credit score or buy an analysis of your debt. It offers weekly alerts but its online data is updated only once a quarter. 3) Equifax Credit Watch offers alerts within 24 hours of suspicious activity on your Equifax personal credit report, unlimited access to the report itself, round-the-clock fraud resolution services and $20,000 of fraud insurance for $99.95 for the first year. Alternatively, for $49.95, you'll get a single annual peek at your personal credit report, more limited access to the fraud resolution center and $2,500 in insurance with a $250 deductible and you'll have to wait up to seven days for an alert. For both, you'll get monthly all clear e-mail if there hasn't been any suspicious activity on your personal credit report. 4) Experian Credit Manager charges $79.95 for daily e-mail alerts, unlimited access to your personal credit report (also updated daily) and a non-FICO credit score. You get a 30-day free trial and a free look at your Experian personal credit report, so you can try it and bail without cost. Credit counselors recommend rotating your orders among the credit bureaus so that you see all three personal credit reports more than once a year. With these services you can keep track of any changes of key information on your personal credit report. |
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