To print article, click Print on your browser's File menu. Go back   Monitor your credit How to read your credit report Test your credit knowledge Liz Pulliam Weston's reading list Find It! Article Index Fast Answers Tools Index Site Map Recent articles by Liz Pulliam Weston: • 7 home-buying traps , 12/18/2005 • 7 ways to win the customer-service game, 12/14/2005 • Your paper check is a thief's best friend, 12/11/2005 More...		The Basics Should you hire a credit watchdog? You could spend as much as $15 a month to have someone watch your credit report for suspicious activity. Or you could do it yourself for free.  By Liz Pulliam Weston The good news is that credit monitoring is getting better. The bad news is that it's still too expensive. A few years ago, you would have had to sign up for at least three different services and shell out more than $200 to get true continuous credit monitoring. Most of the services offered daily reviews at only one bureau and checked with the other two quarterly, if at all. Today you can buy comprehensive credit monitoring that checks all three bureaus daily for suspicious activity. This is important, since the three main credit depositories -- Equifax, Experian and TransUnion -- are separate, private businesses that typically don't share information. You could easily have an identity theft problem that shows up on one report but not the others. Find a loan that's right for you at the Loan Center In addition to being more complete, the new credit-monitoring services also offer more options for how you'll be alerted: e-mail, phone, text messaging, regular mail. Most have $20,000 or more of insurance coverage, and some throw in credit scores to boot. But most services charge $150 or more for the privilege of knowing what's happening with your own credit. Do you need it? Probably not The high cost is the main reason most people should pass on credit monitoring. The reality is that you probably don't need it, and you almost certainly have better things to do with your money. Related news and commentary on MSN Money • Credit reports free and now easy • 8 vital steps to take if your identity is stolen • How safe is your financial information? • Your paper check is a thiefs best friend • Go paperless for safer banking • See how lenders view your credit The exceptions: You've already been the victim of serious identity theft. By "serious," I mean someone has opened or attempted to open accounts in your name. If someone simply swiped your credit card or credit-card number, your problems likely ended when you canceled that card and you probably aren't at increased risk of further identity theft. If someone knows enough about you to get new accounts created, you may be in for months or years of trouble. You're at high risk to become a victim. If instead of swiping your card, a thief got your entire wallet -- including your Social Security number -- your potential exposure to ID theft just skyrocketed, since that number is the key to creating new accounts. (You may be vulnerable even if you know better than to carry your Social Security card; some health insurers, universities and even states use the numbers on the ID cards they issue, despite the enormous risk to consumers.) You're also at higher risk if a company informs you that your private financial data has been stolen, or if your circle includes some unsavory characters such as a nephew who's a drug addict or an ex bent on revenge. Read "8 signs you may know an identity thief" for more details on how to spot potential trouble. Someone else is paying the bill. Several firms who lost critical data to potential identity thieves have tried to make amends by offering credit monitoring to affected consumers. If you're offered this service, find out first if you'll be waiving your right to file a lawsuit should you sign up. If you can benefit without losing your rights, consider doing so. If you're not offered credit monitoring by a company that lost your data, ask for it anyway. Unless you fall into one of these camps, you may be better off ordering your own reports once or twice a year. Federal law now requires that each credit bureau give everyone who asks one free credit report; you can give yourself pretty good free monitoring simply by staggering your orders throughout the year -- order your Experian report each January, your Equifax report each May and your Trans Union report each September, for example. (To learn more about your annual-report rights, click here.) Video: Weston on "Hire a credit watchdog?" If you want more coverage, you could order (and pay for) additional sets of reports from each of the bureaus throughout the year (at $8 to $9 per report) and still spend less than you would for credit monitoring. Youve bought knowledge, not safety If that's not enough for you -- if you're in a high-risk situation or simply won't sleep at night without daily monitoring -- keep in mind that no service can prevent identity theft, any more than a mammogram can prevent breast cancer. What monitoring (and cancer screening) can do is alert you to a problem early enough that you have a better chance of containing the damage. Also, don't be too impressed by the services' ancillary features, like credit scores and insurance. Tracking your scores is nice, of course, but most services don't provide FICOs, which are used in most lending decisions. Typically, the numbers you get will be some kind of "consumer education score" that may (or may not) approximate the scores lenders actually use. And the vast majority of identity-theft victims don't pay much if anything out of pocket, as I noted in Insurers profit from your identity-theft fears. The time you lose in dealing with ID theft hassles is valuable, of course, but often is not covered by these policies. What you really need to decide is how much information you want, and the decision goes beyond whether to choose the one-bureau or three-bureaus monitoring. You also want to figure out how much access you want to the underlying credit reports. Most services provide you with a three-in-one report that merges information from all three bureaus, then updates that once a quarter. If it offers unlimited access to a report, it's typically that merged report or a report from a single credit bureau. If you want unlimited access to all three bureau reports all the time, you might spring for the most expensive service listed here: TransUnion's 3 Bureau Credit Monitoring for $14.95 a month, plus a $24.95 setup fee. If what you really want is just monitoring -- not access to the underlying reports -- save money by opting for a stripped-down product like Experian's Triple Alert. You don't get to see your actual credit reports, but Experian lets you know if there have been any changes at the three bureaus, and what those changes were, for just $4.95 a month. The choices Here are the details of some of the most popular services: Identity Guard's CreditProtectX3 starts you off with a three-in-one credit report merging your credit information from all three bureaus, and then updates that merged report once a quarter. In the meantime, the service monitors your reports at the bureaus daily for any changes. You can get your alerts via e-mail, text message, phone or regular mail. The cost is $24.95 for the first three months and $12.99 a month thereafter and includes $20,000 insurance. Identity Guard's one-bureau product, CreditProtect, monitors your Equifax report daily for changes for $19.95 for the first three months and $9.99 a month thereafter; the insurance coverage is $2,500 with a $250 deductible. Equifax Credit Watch Gold with 3-in-1 Monitoring also gives you a three-in-one report to start, with ongoing checks at all three bureaus. In addition, you can have unlimited access to your Equifax file. The cost is $12.95 a month, with a three-month minimum required, or $129.95 a year. Its one-bureau product, Credit Watch Gold, is free for the first 30 days, then $9.95 a month or $99.95 for 12 months. Both services offer wireless or e-mail alerts within 24 hours of any changes and come with $20,000 of insurance with no deductible. The Credit Watch Silver product offers e-mail alerts within one week of the change and a $2,500 policy with a $250 deductible. That costs $4.95 a month, or 12 months for $49.95. Experian's Triple Advantage Credit Monitoring, which is typically offered through various partners, usually costs $12.95 a month for daily monitoring at all three bureaus with unlimited access to your Experian report and a $50,000 insurance policy. If you just want three-bureau monitoring, rather than access to your actual reports, consider Triple Alert, which alerts you via e-mail or cell phone within 24 hours of any changes for $4.95 a month and comes with a $10,000 policy. Finally, there's Experian's one-bureau monitoring service, Credit Manager, which checks your Experian report and score daily for $9.95 a month with a 30-day free trial; there's no insurance coverage. Liz Pulliam Westons newsletter Get the latest from Liz Pulliam Weston. Sign up to receive her free weekly newsletter. Your e-mail address:   Learn more about newsletters   TransUnion's 3 Bureau Credit Monitoring is the only service so far that allows you unlimited access to your reports at all three bureaus. (The others check those reports for you, but actually provide you with a new, updated report once a quarter, at best.) Alerts are provided by e-mail. TransUnion recently raised its prices, so the startup fee is now $24.95 and the monthly charge is $14.95 per month for three-bureau monitoring. Its one-bureau product, TransUnion Credit Monitoring, is $9.95 a month after a 30-day free trial. MyFico.com doesn't offer three-bureau monitoring, but its one-bureau products offer something most others don't: access to your actual FICO scores. Its ID Theft Deluxe monitors changes in your TransUnion report, alerts you to potential problems via e-mail and provides quarterly access to a FICO score based on your TransUnion report. The cost for the service is $4.95 a month or $49.95 a year, which includes a $25,000 insurance policy. In addition, MyFico.com offers Score Watch, which gives you daily access to your Equifax report and its related FICO score for $7. Liz Pulliam Weston's column appears every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions in the Your Money message board.
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