BILL'S ANSWER
While I do not know of any free credit monitoring services, you should keep in mind that many of the services provided by credit monitoring firms can be successfully performed by consumers without professional assistance.
If you enroll with a credit monitoring service, the company will track your credit report, and notify you of any changes or inquiries. The primary purpose of the service is to alert you to the presence of unauthorized accounts and inquiries, which may indicate that someone is attempting to steal your identity. You can do this yourself by pulling copies of your credit reports periodically and reviewing them to verify that no unusual or unrecognized activity has occurred. Many services, such as LifeLock, also place fraud alerts on your credit reports, which tell creditors that before opening any new accounts in your name, that they should contact you and receive verbal authorization to open the account. A fraud alert will also remove your name from all pre-approved credit offer lists for two years, meaning that you should stop receiving credit card solicitations in the mail. Keep in mind that you do not have to enroll in a credit monitoring program to place a fraud alert on your report.
You can get this 'credit monitoring service' by placing a fraud alert on your own credit report. You can do this yourself simply by contacting the three major credit bureaus and requesting that a fraud alert be placed on your report. You can find the contact information for the credit bureaus at /creditreport/
Some credit monitoring services also offer insurance in case your identity is stolen while you are enrolled in their program. This aspect of credit monitoring services cannot be replicated on your own, but you must decide whether the cost of the service is worth the protection it provides you.
Like many professional services, some consumers are willing to pay a fee for the convenience of having the work of monitoring their credit done for them. Monitoring services are not particularly expensive ($10-$14 per month), so if you prefer to have a professional do the work for you, I certainly do not discourage you from hiring a credit monitoring firm. If you do decide to hire a professional, you should shop around, as the services offered vary from company to company. Bills.com has a page devoted to this topic at /creditmonitoring/
I also encourage you to read up on identity theft in general, starting with the Federal Trade Commission's page at Identity Theft
I hope this information helps you Find. Learn. Save.
www.bills.com
February 27, 2010
February 27, 2010
Since you don't have facebook, please provide us with your location and a valid email address so we can answer it. Without a valid email address,we can't reply. (Go back to login with Facebook)
Due to the high volume of comments received, we cannot publish and/or respond to every comment received. If you have a specific question, we recommend you search our site for an answer before commenting.
* Bills.com will not share, sell, lend, or make public your e-mail address. We reserve the right to delete any questions or comments that violate the Bills.com terms of service.
We get a lot of comments! To help us show our boss that this is a valuable service, so we can keep providing it, we ask you to do 2 things before commmenting:
Log in
Like us
Submit your comment!
Due to the high volume of comments received, we cannot publish and/or respond to every comment received. If you have a specific question, we recommend you search our site for an answer before commenting.
* Bills.com will not share, sell, lend, or make public your e-mail address. We reserve the right to delete any questions or comments that violate the Bills.com terms of service.
Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be posted shortly.
Comments (2)