Everybody knows that keeping a clean and accurate credit record is vitally important. Unfortunately, it is not easy to weekly control that your credit record doesn't contain any errors, fraudulent transactions or new accounts that you didn't initiate. That's where credit monitoring services come in. They provide customers with unlimited access to their credit report and score, and alert them if any significant changes occur. Read more about credit monitoring service and its providers in out article.
Over the last 3 years, about 49 millions of Americans have become the victims of data-security breaches. About 19% of them reported that the disclosure of valuable information led to fraudulent credit card charges, account losses or other forms of identity theft. It may take months to repair the damage caused to your credit report. Even though you have not committed a crime or abused your credit, you will suffer from severe financial consequences. During the time it takes to solve these problems, you may lose a good job opportunity or be denied credit cards and loans.
If you want to protect yourself from identity theft, consider singing for a credit monitoring service. It will alert you, usually daily or weekly, if anything unusual or suspicious appears on your credit report. Credit monitoring services are offered by credit bureaus, financial organizations and other third-party companies. This service costs from $50 per year to about $180.00 per year depending upon the provider.
Credit monitoring is typically available either as one-bureau service (you can get access to the data from only one of the 3 national credit bureaus), or three-bureau service (with access to data from all 3 national credit bureaus). Financial experts usually recommend seeing data from all 3 bureaus because the information they have can differ.
When you subscribe to credit monitoring service, you will receive alerts (by e-mail or cell phone text message) about critical changes in your credit report such as credit inquiries, employment changes, delinquencies, negative information or new accounts. If you were not aware of these changes, someone may be posing as you.
How soon you are notified about a change in your credit report can also vary. For example, Equifax provides three levels of credit monitoring service: the cheapest one offers weekly notification and two other ones offer daily notification. However, keep in mind that it could take more than a month to discover credit fraud because some lenders report to the bureaus once a month.
If you don't have funds to pay for a credit monitoring service, there is a way you can track changes in your credit report for free. By law, each of 3 credit bureaus must give you access to your credit report once a year at no charge. Firstly request your credit report from one bureau, then four months later from the second bureau and four months later after that from the third bureau. For example, you can request your report from Equifax in January, from Experian in May and from TransUnion in September. This is an effective and simple way to monitor your credit report throughout the year at no cost.
|
