Credit Monitoring
What is the best credit monitoring service?
Thank you so much for your detailed response on another question. I have a new question! My husband and I need to monitor our credit report and we'd like to monitor all three and the FICO score. Should we get the Equifax Credit Watch Gold with 3-in-1 Monitoring and Score Power? Does this service allow us to monitor all three reports anytime we like? We tried learning more about this but Equifax didn't do a good job of explaining this service. We saw another one on MyFico.com that charges $9 but only gives you report from Equifax and the FICO score. We don't want to pay for it if we can't monitor all 3 credit reports along with our FICO score. It's very important for us to monitor all three and our FICO score at this time to make sure that the credit bureaus have updated and corrected all the inaccuracies. Do you have any suggestion?
By
Mark Cappel
Unfortunately, Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian do a terrible job of explaining the services they offer, in my humble opinion.
All three offer a $15 per month service that monitors significant changes to a consumer's credit reports at all three major credit bureaus. The $15 fee includes fraud insurance and e-mail alerts when a credit report changes. The Equifax 3-in-1 Monitoring with 4 FICO Scores adds in the FICO score, which the other two do not match at that price point.
If you want to see all three of your credit reports at any time and any interval you won't get that with the Equifax 3-in-1 Monitoring with 4 FICO Scores. To see the credit reports, you will need to purchase the Experian 3 Bureau Online Credit Report for $40 per month, or the TransUnion 3-in-1 Credit Report or Equifax 3-in-1 Report for $30 per month. Unfortunately, none of the more expensive services include a monitoring service.
For your particular situation (in an earlier message you explained that a family member's derogatory account activities were being reported on your credit report erroneously) I recommend you consider the $15 monitoring service from any of the three credit bureaus. I do not have direct experience with any of these services, and consequently cannot recommend one over the other. I encourage readers who have had direct experience with any of the monitoring services to share their thoughts in the comments section below.
This is not responsive to your question, but I would feel remiss if I did not mention that consumers can get a no-cost copy of their credit report from each of the three consumer credit reporting agencies (commonly called credit bureaus) by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com
More about credit monitoring
Bills.com offers more information about credit monitoring and credit reports. Select the hyperlinks I just mentioned to learn more about credit monitoring and credit reports.
I hope this information helps you Find. Learn & Save.
Best,
Bill
www.bills.com/
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BABill,Dec, 2009In your situation, I do not see a significant reason not to freeze the credit for you and your spouse. Remember that each of you has a separate credit report and score.
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RRRon,Dec, 2009My wife and I are both retired, have three credit cards that we pay off each month, and a small mortgage on our home. We don't plan on applying for any more credit, so my question is, do you think it would be advisable for us to have our credit frozen? Thanks for your advice.
