CREDIT REPORTS

 

 

Equifax Monitoring leads the way in credit report and monitoring services. Equifax offers a wide range of options to suit everyone's needs but we were most impressed with the comprehensive nature of the Equifax Credit Watch Gold with 3-in-1 Monitoring program.

With a monthly fee of only $12.95 you receive the most all-encompassing credit report package available. Some of the options Included with that package:

•  Comprehensive credit file monitoring and automated alerts of key changes to your Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion credit reports

•  Wireless alerts and customizable alerts available

•  Three major credit bureau reporting called a 3-in-1 Credit Report and unlimited access to your Equifax Credit Report

•  Up to $1,000,000 identity theft insurance with no deductible

•  Customer service assistance 24/7

Outside of monitoring the big three credit report agencies - Equifax, Experian and TransUnion - Equifax goes above and beyond by also searching a long list of ever changing underground trading sites. These sites sell your social security and identity information and can be in the form of FTP sites, blogs, chat rooms, forums and more. In the event that an ID theft occurs, Equifax provides up to $1,000,000 in insurance to cover costs.

Unique to Equifax is their ability to effectively provide online dispute service for credit accounts, collections, liens and more. They put their customers at ease by offering a sophisticated and systematic approach to fixing credit and identity theft issues.

Equifax also allows for a credit freeze to be placed on your account to prevent information in your Equifax credit file from being reported to credit grantors and other companies that attempt to send you credit card applications without your permission. The security freeze lasts as long as you like, and may be lifted for specific creditors as requested.

Another service we liked is the Equifax Rate Finder to identify the best interest rates for major purchases (such as cars and homes), given your credit score and credit history. This can save you significant time and energy from calling your local banks and attempting to haggle the best price yourself.

With the level of service and knowledge that Equifax provides, they clearly earn the number one ranking in our reviews. The customer service team is outstanding and the site provides the highest level of information and services available today.

 

 

National Credit Report provides consumers the safety of monthly credit monitoring for a low, one time annual price. For only $99.95 per year, or an $8.33 per month charge, National Credit Report provides an all-inclusive "TRI-MERGE" credit report that arrives to you online. Also included in the annual membership is "Safeguard Credit" which, via e-mail, alerts you of any potentially fraudulent items or critical credit report changes within 24 hours of the incident.

National Credit Report offers some consumer education on improving or disputing credit report issues. The Tri-MERGE report is simply one report that provides information from all three major credit reporting agencies including Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. The report is easy to read and clearly lists accounts at a bureau-by-bureau, line-by-line level. This allows for you to compare the agency's information and look for any discrepancies or errors. Again, this report is sent online with the purchase of the annual membership. The report includes the following information:

•  Credit inquiries

•  Name Account Number

•  Opened Date

•  Balance Payment

•  Credit Limit

•  Current Status

•  Account Type / Terms

Safeguard Credit is a system that looks for signs of identity theft or credit fraud and sends you notification within 24 hours of the incident. This allows you to stop a potential identity theft immediately and before permanent damage occurs. Safeguard Credit also provides $25,000 in insurance in the event that your credit is successfully stolen. If no activity occurs within the entire month the consumer receives an email notifying them of no changes to the credit report.

Safeguard Credit notifies you of the following activity when it occurs:

•  A credit inquiry

•  Change to address

•  New employment record

•  New tradeline

•  Notification of a delinquency or an improvement in payment timeliness

•  New public record

•  New bankruptcy

Overall, National Credit Report provides a good service. The annualized cost is very inexpensive for the level of service they provide. We had some concerns with the responsiveness of the customer service team. We would also prefer a more frequent notification of our credit score beyond just at the beginning of the program. But still we think National Credit Report offers a valuable service for the money.

 

 

Once you've purchased the Credit Protect 3-in-1 Credit Report for $19.95 you receive a number of services. Included is a comprehensive credit report, credit monitoring, $2,500 in identity theft insurance (minus a $500 deductible), access to credit fraud specialists and access to the Credit Analyzer. This is a rather extensive line of services but let's look closer at what this actually means.

The Relia Credit 3-in-1 credit report with credit score includes credit history from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The actual credit score provided is from only one agency - Equifax. We felt the consumer is missing out by not seeing the actual score from all three major agencies. The report is available online for 30 days and is not emailed to you like some other providers.

The Relia Credit "Credit Protect" service is a proactive warning system that allows you to monitor your credit activity and identity information. On a daily basis,Credit Protect looks for activity on the Equifax credit file only - they do not review activity from any other agency. In the event of a new account, credit inquiry or address change an alert is sent via email, mail, text-enabled cell phone or pager. Credit Protect also provides $2,500 in identity theft insurance to cover fraud related expenses such as:

•  Lost wages as a result of time off work-up to $500 per week for a maximum of four weeks.

•  Attorney fees incurred(with prior consent) for defending suits brought incorrectly by merchants and their collection agencies.

Relia Credit also sends a personal Quarterly Credit Update that identifies your current credit status and includes information from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The summary is sent every 90 days and includes:

•  New accounts opened in your name

•  Records all inquiries made into your credit files

•  Tracks any identification information changes

•  Provides your current credit score at Equifax

•  Lists any accounts in collections

•  Details possible negative information on your file

•  Updates account balance increases greater than 20%

•  Notifies you of account status improvements

•  Records all closed accounts, items removed from your credit file, and any credit limit increases

•  Notes all public record items, including judgments, bankruptcies, and liens.

The Credit Analyzer is a service that assists in improving your credit score via an online tool. This allows you to see how your credit score could change by updates to your account balance and credit limits. This is a helpful took if you are looking to make a major purchase and want the best rate available to you.

Relia Credit provides customer specialists for your assistance M-F, 8am - 11pm, and Saturday 9 am - 6pm (eastern), to provide one-on-one personal assistance in understanding your credit report and how to handle any identity theft. They can also assist in contacting the appropriate parties when fraud has occurred.

Overall, Relia Credit provides a decent total package. We liked the customer service team, their level of knowledge and responsiveness. We would have preferred they used all three credit bureaus for credit monitoring.

 

 

Many are familiar with Free Credit Score from the numerous TV commercials aired frequently. The catchy jingle depicts a young man with credit issues as a result of his lack of credit monitoring. As a result, he can't buy a house or a decent car and holds an evening job in a restaurant or a renaissance festival, and drives a lousy car. If you haven't seen these commercials you soon will.

When you sign up with Free Credit Score you receive a free credit report from Experian, your credit score (also from Experian), and use of their credit monitoring service for 7 days. The credit monitoring service scans activity across all three major credit bureaus and notifies you via email when specific activity occurs. Activity such as credit checks, new accounts or any other changes that occur are sent to you within 24 hours of the incident. This allows you to quickly inquire directly with the company in question. If you decide, before the 7 day trial period, that you are not satisfied with the credit monitoring service you must call to cancel your membership. Otherwise, you're automatically charged $14.95 every month until you cancel the program.

We appreciate that Free Credit Score was very upfront with the trial period. They are fairly straightforward about their service offering but unfortunately they lack many of the bells and whistles the higher ranked companies provide. One disappointment we had is the absence of any consumer education on how your credit activity impacts your credit score, how to file claims with credit bureaus, and how to take action on fraudulent activity affecting your credit. Free Credit Score is missing insurance protection as well, and therefore doesn't offer any financial assistance in the event of identity theft.

While we like the commercials and catchy jingle, we recommend a higher ranked product that gives you more for you money.

 

 

myFICO offers a number of services including FICO Quarterly Monitoring for only $49.95 per year or $4.95 per month. While this is certainly very affordable, the services provided are also less frequent and thorough.

myFICO does allow you to cancel your subscription at any time and they provide a 20% discount on additional FICO scores purchases and TransUnion credit reports. That said, myFICO works solely with TransUnion and does not provide any comprehensive three-agency reporting. This does bring concern as accounts and fraud can occur with any agency and may not appear on TransUnion ever.

FICO Quarterly Monitoring reviews 400 data sources on a weekly basis. Email alerts are sent if any of the following occur that are tied to your identity:

•  New names and date of birth

•  Social security numbers

•  New addresses and phone numbers

FICO Quarterly Monitoring also provides you with your TransUnion credit score and credit report every three months. Within the report you may determine if any suspicious activity, new accounts, or other issues have occurred within that time frame that you weren't previously aware of.

Identity Theft Insurance is provided within the FICO Quarterly Monitoring subscription and includes assistance with resolving any identify theft events. You access their assistance line from a toll-free number managed 5 days a week. Identity theft insurance coverage is up to $25,000 for associated costs.

myFICO's credit reporting is only comprised of one reporting agency and therefore limits the entire picture of your true credit activity. We also felt the weekly monitoring was not as proactive as the daily reporting offered from our top-ranked services, and therefore allowed the potential for several theft events to occur before you're made aware of the risk.

 

 

Credit Reporting provides a comprehensive, three credit bureau report plus credit all scores for $44.85 per request. The reports are easy to read and allow for a quick comparison across all three bureaus. The reports are sent online and come within seconds of your purchase. While we liked the looks of the reporting we have concerns with the philosophy behind this company's approach to appropriately monitoring changes to your credit.

Credit Reporting does not provide any daily monitoring of changes to addresses, credit inquiries, late payments, new accounts and more. They leave the monitoring up to the consumer to frequently purchase reports. Insurance is also not an option, and neither is proper support to identify and resolve identity theft issues. If a consumer wanted to use Credit Reporting for monthly monitoring it would cost them over $500 per year, which clearly exceeds the cost of all other providers.

In the end, we felt that Credit Reporting provided limited services for the price. The company lacks proactive measures necessary in today's environment as well as adequate support to resolve serious issues identified in the reporting. This company is also missing effective tools to review the progress of your credit over time.

 

 

Credit Report provides a straightforward website but with bare bones information. Forget about tools and customer support to assist you. The $14.95 monthly free provides a single credit report and monitoring service.

By ordering your free credit report and free credit score, you will automatically be enrolled in a 7 day free trial of 3 bureau credit monitoring and credit score tracking. You will receive automatic email alerts whenever there is a significant change to any of your credit reports or when there is an important shift in your credit score. What those alleged "significant changes" are, was not made available to us to determine if the effort is in fact thorough. For each month that you continue your membership your credit card will be billed $14.95. You may cancel anytime - there is no obligation.

This company has been in business for over 10 years and provides a direct link to the Better Business Bureau to identify their rating and any negative business dealings. This company rates above average with most complaints centering around issues with bad charges back in 2007.

Overall, Credit Report was lacking across the board in tools and information. We recommend a higher ranked provider.

 

 

Free Score 360 offers not only a "Free" 3-in-1 credit report but also a savings club membership. This brought instant concerns to us knowing that an unrelated "Savings Club" is of no benefit to us when our focus is on our credit. Also, until you read the fine-print language you really aren't aware that you are signing up for a monthly service that costs $29.95, billed directly to your credit card. In our mind, these are the type of companies that look and feel like scam artists.

When we focused in on the actual credit reporting provided by Free Score 360 we found that the monthly report includes information from TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. The report merges all information and provides scores from each bureau as well. The reports are simple to read and allow for an easy comparison between results for accuracy. The report is provided via an online tool only. Reports are not emailed, you must print a copy for yourself to keep.

Free Score 360 provides daily monitoring of credit. Any changes to your credit are reported within 24 hours of the update. What specific aspects of credit changes that are reported was unavailable and therefore presents concern regarding the scope of their monitoring.

All in all, after fully reviewing this company, we continued to have serious concerns regarding the level of legitimacy. We found numerous customer complaints regarding the free credit report, trying to cancel and still getting charged $29.95 each month. Rather than spend the exorbitant monthly fee for this service, we recommend one of the higher ranked companies in our review.