Comparing Credit Monitoring Services
How do I find my credit score? And monitor it? The Credit Monitoring Services offer many beneficial options. There are so many companies that do this job that it can be confusing, but here is some information to help sort through the best credit monitoring services.
All the credit bureaus, Experian, TransUnion and Equifax, offer credit monitoring services. They cost between $5 and $15 per month per person. Now we are going to discuss and compare two of these credit monitoring services: TransUnion and Equifax.
Trans Union’s ID-Fraud Watch is $10.95 per quarter ($43.80 per year) and provides weekly monitoring of Trans Union’s credit report. For an additional $5.95 per quarter ($23.80 per year), this service will also monitor Trans Union’s proprietary TrueCredit Score. It permits consumers a free credit report each quarter. It does not offer monitoring of the other bureaus.
Equifax’s Credit Watch Gold with 3-in-1 Monitoring will monitor the Big Three credit bureau reports daily (24-hour notification) at a cost of $9.95 per month ($119.40 per year. It offers unlimited Equifax credit report access. Equifax’s Credit Watch Silver monitors the Equifax report daily and also notifies the user of key changes within 24 hours. It costs $4.95 per month (totaling $59.40 per year) or can be discounted for an annual payment of $49.95. It offers two free reports, one at enrollment and one anytime during the subscription period.
The credit monitoring of a FICO score may seem useful and nice to have, but this really isn’t what monitoring is all about. It’s about early detection of identity theft. Having said that, I believe that Equifax’s Credit Watch Gold with 3-in-1 Monitoring and Trans Union’s 3-Bureau Credit Monitoring do exactly that, covering all three reports while providing daily monitoring and 24-hour notification. Both also offer unlimited access to new reports (for each), which can be useful for those who are earnestly tracking their credit restoration progress and wish to pull their reports frequently in order to monitor when creditors are reporting account information. Trans Union has rolled its credit monitoring solutions into its TrueCredit division. They’re doing this so that they can build a customer base in order to hawk what could be considered a useless credit score product.
Personally, I like the Equifax solution the best right now, since their web site is much better at explaining their products and prices. Furthermore, Equifax is the only credit bureau that currently has a close working relationship with FICO, by providing a Score Power score (a FICO Score) to consumers. Although a Score Power score isn’t included with Equifax’s Credit Watch Gold with 3-in-1 Monitoring, being on their customer list will probably get you on their mailing list for special discounts of their products. Just be sure to opt-in for internal offers at the time you order.