Free Credit Reports and Credit Monitoring Offers Compared
By Money Under 30 on Apr 4, 2008 in Credit |
The ads for free credit reports and credit monitoring are impossible to miss, like the one with the guy in restaurant, playing the guitar in a pirate shirt. While it’s unlikely having your identity stolen is going to reduce your career prospects (as this ad suggests), there are still plenty of reasons to consider credit monitoring. Many offers also provide free access to one or more credit bureau reports if you cancel within 7 or 30 days. But which offer should you choose?
Here is a comparison of the top free credit report and credit monitoring offers. Several of these offers can also protect you from identity theft and reimburse you for any damage caused by an identity thief.
Credit Report and Credit Monitoring Offer Reviews
My Pick for Credit Monitoring – Experian Triple Advantage – Experian Triple Advantage 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 $12.95 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 this offer »
My Pick for Identity Theft Protection – LifeLock – If you need to protect your good credit, I recommend LifeLock. For just $9 per month or $99 per year (compared to $13 - $20 per month for credit monitoring), LifeLock not only puts fraud alerts on all of your credit reports, but will pay up to $1 million in damages as a result of identity theft. They will also provide you with free credit reports annually, assist you should your credit cards ever be stolen, and opt you out of receiving credit card junk mail. Get this offer »
My Pick for Free Credit Report – GoFreeCredit – GoFreeCredit.com provides your free credit report and score if you cancel within 30 days, and provides credit monitoring for $12.95 per month afterwards. 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 7 days. Get this offer »
Not Bad - Equifax Credit Watch Gold – 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 this offer »
Not Bad - Privacy Matters 1-2-3 – 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 this offer »
Skip It - Your Official Credit Report – 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 this offer »
Skip It - MyFICO – MyFICO.com provides several products, including Credit Complete, ScoreWatch, and others, providing combinations of credit reports, credit monitoring, and identity theft. While their website provides some useful free articles about monitoring and maintaining a good credit score, their services are fairly expensive. Get this offer »
Skip It - CreditReporting.com – CreditReporting.com allows you to order your own personal 3 bureau credit reports for $34.90 with several choices for ordering and delivery. Get this offer »
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.
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On Apr 4, 2008, The Coolest Gifts said:
A quick tip about the last one you mentioned, AnnualCreditReport.com
You’re right that federal law lets you see your credit report once a year, but people might not realize that they have the right to see their credit report from each of the three credit reporting bureaus once per year.
I visit AnnualCreditReport.com every 4 months, and request my report from one of them. Equifax in January, Experian in May, and TransUnion in September. And it’s totally free.
On Apr 4, 2008, shawna said:
I am going to be making a car purchase in about six months so I signed up at truecredit.com. I think it is $15 a month and you get your credit score and report from all 3 credit bureaus. And you can get a new one every day if you want.
I didn’t know if you knew about that one or not
On Apr 11, 2008, Rebecca said:
I believe the monthly monitoring charge for Privacy Matters 1-2-3 is $29.95, not $19.95.