Credit Monitoring

·          What is Credit Monitoring

·          Will Credit Monitoring Hurt my score?

·          Benefits of Credit Monitoring

·          Protecting Your Information

·          The Advantages of Credit Counseling

What is Credit Monitoring

Credit report monitoring is the frequent examination of your credit report in order to detect any suspicious activity or change in your credit report. Companies offer this service on a subscription basis, typically allowing you regular access to your credit report, alerts of critical changes to your credit report, and sometimes various additional services. Credit monitoring can help you detect credit-related fraud and identity theft.

Credit monitoring is offered for one primary reason – identity protection. With identity theft on the rise, having protection through a credit monitoring service is important so that you can find out as early as possible when a change that you did not authorize has occurred on your credit report. Your credit status can change daily as creditors and lenders constantly provide new information about you to the credit bureaus. Credit monitoring services are designed to immediately inform you of any changes to your credit report so you can feel confident that you’re taking steps to protect yourself from identity theft. Using a credit monitoring service does not affect your credit score.

Finding errors on your credit report as early as possible will assist you in how quickly the error can be resolved. If the error came from the creditor or credit reporting agency, a dispute can be filed immediately and the issue should be able to be resolved within 45 days. If you find out you have been a victim of identity theft, the sooner you find out the earlier you can begin resolving the issues related to the theft. Although monitoring your credit may not prevent identity theft, statistics show that the longer it takes to notice the theft has occurred, the greater the financial damage can be to fix your credit after a theft.

Another reason to monitor your credit report is to make sure your report is clean prior to applying for a new loan, job or renting an apartment. If you apply for a loan and then find errors on your credit report, you may be declined for new credit. The same can happen when applying for a new job or renting an apartment. If you are able to clean up errors on your report before applying for new credit, the loan process can be much smoother and quicker.

What Credit Services Monitor:

Although you can purchase varying levels of service, generally, these services will monitor the following:

·         Inquiries to your credit file

·         New account activity

·         Address changes

·         Collection accounts

·         Changes to account information

·         Credit limit increases

·         Changes to public records

·         Changes to existing accounts

·         Closed accounts

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