Money Under 30

Free Credit Report Offers Compared

The ads for free credit reports and credit monitoring are impossible to miss. The singing pirate for FreeCreditReport.com, anyone? Although it’s unlikely ID theft will kill your career (as this ad suggests), there are good reasons to consider credit monitoring. Most offers also provide a free credit report even if you cancel the service within a certain period of time. Here is a comparison of the top free credit report and credit monitoring offers including what you get, what it costs, and what you can get for free if you cancel during the free trial.

Best Free Credit Report Offers

Best Credit Monitoring –– FreeCreditReport.com provides you with your free Experian credit report and score and a free 7-day credit monitoring trial. Cancel within seven days and your report is free. Credit monitoring is $14.95 per month thereafter, and the best feature is you will have unlimited access to your Experian credit report for no additional charge. Experian sends email alerts anytime there are changes to your reports, including new accounts, negative information, address changes, and more. Get Experian Triple Advantage »

Best Free Credit Report –– GoFreeCredit.com provides your free credit report and score if you cancel within 30 days, and provides credit monitoring for $12.95 per month afterward. Unlike Experian, you cannot view your credit report after 60 days without incurring an extra fee, but you have 30 days to cancel credit monitoring versus Experian’s seven days. Get GoFreeCredit.com »

Best Credit Score –– MyFICO.com provides several products, including Credit Complete, ScoreWatch, and others, providing a combination of credit reports, credit monitoring, and identity theft, all with access to your bona fide FICO credit score. As far as I know, MyFICO.com is also the only service that allows you to cancel monthly programs online—without calling in. And, for those that don’t want to enroll in a monthly program, you can also purchase a one-time score and report for $15.95. Get MyFICO »

Worst Free Credit Report Offers

Not Bad –– Equifax Credit Watch gives you instant online to one credit report for $10 or all three for $29.95. No subscription to credit monitoring is required. The best part about Equifax’s offer is because your report is coming directly from the credit bureau itself, they provide a free online dispute feature to fix any errors on your reports. Get Equifax Credit Watch Gold »

Not Bad — Privacy Matters provides a combination offer providing both credit monitoring, free credit report access, and identity theft protection up to $25,000. The nice thing about Privacy Matters is that they provide unlimited access to all three of your credit reports, not just one report like other offers. The downside is they are more expensive, charging $29.95 per month. You can get your three credit reports free if you cancel this offer within 7 days. Get Privacy Matters »

Skip It — YourOfficialCreditReport.com charges $6.98 for your free credit report, provides a free 7-day trial of credit monitoring ($22.91 monthly thereafter), and provides up to $20,000 of identity theft insurance. Get ‘Your Official Credit Report’ »

Skip It — CreditReporting.com allows you to order your own personal 3 bureau credit reports for $34.90 with several choices for ordering and delivery. Get CreditReporting.com »

How Often Should You Check Your Credit?

While you should check your credit at least once a year, I recommend you do it more frequently. Checking your credit twice a year or quarterly is smart to make sure your credit is consistently free of errors and knowing where you stand with lenders. If you are currently working to erase errors, improve your credit score, or plan to get a mortgage in the next year, you may want to watch your credit report monthly.

Your Free Annual Credit Report

If it’s just your credit report you need (not credit monitoring or identity theft protection), federal law gives you the right to a free copy of your credit report once a year at www.annualcreditreport.com.