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How to Monitor Your Own Credit, For Free, Forever
http://lifehacker.com/how-to-monitor-your-own-credit-for-free-forever-1510277742
When retailers like Target get hacked and lose million and millions of customers' data, they usually apologize and offer a year or so of credit monitoring services to make amends. With Neiman Marcus, Michaels and Home Depot also struggling with data breaches, there's no reason to wait for them to throw you a bone. Here's how you can monitor your own credit, for free, for as long as you want.
Credit monitoring services keep an eye on your credit report and alert you to any significant changes or suspicious activity on any of your accounts that could influence your credit score. It's not the same as transaction monitoring or fraud alerts, but it's great at catching identity theft, as long as it happens while your accounts are being monitored. If someone opens a new account in your name, or maxes out one of your credit cards before you notice it, a monitoring service can alert you and your banks to take the appropriate action.
One of the big problems with taking retailers up on their credit monitoring offers is that sometimes they come with strings attached. They may ask you to give up your right to sue them and waive any liability they may have for losing your data if you take them up on it, forcing you into arbitration if you want to take action against them. None of the companies in the latest hacks have done that yet, but it only takes a trip down The Consumerist's arbitration tagpage to see how well that usually works out for consumers.
The bigger issue with retailer-offered credit monitoring is that it's temporary. Sometimes it lasts for a year, maybe two if you're lucky. Some of the smaller companies tap out at six months because they can't afford to pay one of the big credit bureaus what it costs to monitor customer credit for longer than that. Unfortunately, in any case, it's usually ineffective because the data thieves that took the information are often more interested in selling the data than using it themselves. Then, once the data is off of their hands and they've been paid, the groups buying the data will sit on it for a year, or a few months—however long it takes for the credit monitoring to expire—and then start duplicating cards and testing out bank and credit accounts.
While we're not saying you shouldn't take up a company or an organization on their free credit monitoring if it's offered, we are saying that the limitations are fairly obvious. Plus, there are ways to monitor your own account like a hawk without having to put more energy or effort into it than you probably already do. Let's take a look at some of them.
When retailers like Target get hacked and lose million and millions of customers' data, they usually apologize and offer a year or so of credit monitoring services to make amends. With Neiman Marcus, Michaels and Home Depot also struggling with data breaches, there's no reason to wait for them to throw you a bone. Here's how you can monitor your own credit, for free, for as long as you want.
Credit monitoring services keep an eye on your credit report and alert you to any significant changes or suspicious activity on any of your accounts that could influence your credit score. It's not the same as transaction monitoring or fraud alerts, but it's great at catching identity theft, as long as it happens while your accounts are being monitored. If someone opens a new account in your name, or maxes out one of your credit cards before you notice it, a monitoring service can alert you and your banks to take the appropriate action.
One of the big problems with taking retailers up on their credit monitoring offers is that sometimes they come with strings attached. They may ask you to give up your right to sue them and waive any liability they may have for losing your data if you take them up on it, forcing you into arbitration if you want to take action against them. None of the companies in the latest hacks have done that yet, but it only takes a trip down The Consumerist's arbitration tagpage to see how well that usually works out for consumers.
The bigger issue with retailer-offered credit monitoring is that it's temporary. Sometimes it lasts for a year, maybe two if you're lucky. Some of the smaller companies tap out at six months because they can't afford to pay one of the big credit bureaus what it costs to monitor customer credit for longer than that. Unfortunately, in any case, it's usually ineffective because the data thieves that took the information are often more interested in selling the data than using it themselves. Then, once the data is off of their hands and they've been paid, the groups buying the data will sit on it for a year, or a few months—however long it takes for the credit monitoring to expire—and then start duplicating cards and testing out bank and credit accounts.
While we're not saying you shouldn't take up a company or an organization on their free credit monitoring if it's offered, we are saying that the limitations are fairly obvious. Plus, there are ways to monitor your own account like a hawk without having to put more energy or effort into it than you probably already do. Let's take a look at some of them.
This lifehacker post is from 2014 but is still valid. If you sign for the services from a company after a breach, (like Equifax now), you give up rights to join a class action lawsuit or some other strings attached. There are ways to do it for free.
See what your bank or credit union has to offer. Check AARP or AAA if you're a member. Check CreditSesame or CreditKarma. Get your free credit report from the government site annualcreditreport.com, not from the scam site that is advertised on tv.
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