I was wondering which monitoring service you guys use? Do you get your scores with the service? Which is the best? Do you like it? Do you not like it? And do you know of any deals ... such as 30-day free trial and etc.? Thanks Guys
partial answer.... "...........do you know of any deals ... such as 30-day free trial and etc.? " try here: <http://consumers.creditnet.com/cs/creditreports.html>
I am using Creditexpert. Am currently on the 30 day free trial but will keep it. It gives you a score but not the true FICO, but I think it is close. I am monitoring it on a daily basis, trying to get my score up. I recommend it if you need to keep close watch on your report. I can't afford to get monitoring services for all three CRA's, so picked the one I can monitor daily. I get my TU report and score each month by disputing one item. I tell them to send me my score when they delete the item (it is free but they will only send it if you ask). They make enough mistakes that I should get free reports for life. I am going to break down and pay for my score from Equifax to see how it lines up with EQ and TU.
One warning if you do sign up for Credit expert. Some people here have reported signing up for the 30 day free trial only to have the $79 fee charged immediately. They said they were told that if they canceled before the 30 days was up, they could get a refund. I signed up through Nextcard almost a month ago and have not yet been charged.
Thanks Guys.. I though about using teh Credit expert but DH had it and he wasn't to happy with it. I was wondering if anyone has used Equifax's Monitoring service? I was thinking of using that service. If you have.. does it give you your score and etc??
If you mean privista as equifax's monitoring service : I tried the 30 free trial period. It only updates once a week, gives you a score between 0-100 that is completely unreliable. doesn't have all the cool simulators that creditexpert has. On the up side, it costs half as much ($30-40). One report a week is usually enough.
No.. I wasn't thinking of Privista... I was thinking of the service they offer at Equifax's website. Anyone??
I have Equifax Credit Watch, Privista, Credit Expert and Identity Guard. Credit Watch (Equifax): EQ's Credit Watch doesn't do much for me. I've had it since June and not a single alert. You get 6 credit reports for the year, for 49.95, no scores. You of course can pay extra for the score and it's your true FICO. Their alerts are more for identity fraud, and there aren't very many. You can dispute online, only if you don't have a local affiliate. And they have a lot of local affiliates. This one is a waste of my money. Privista (Equifax): You get 30 days free and then 39.95 for the year. Although they only update weekly, they have a lot of alerts and every Monday I get either an all clear or notification something has changed. You get a new credit report each week. They have a 0-100 score, it doesn't equate to FICO, but you can see improvement as you repair. No online disputes. They also have a decent opt out program. I've had this since their inception, so I ended up with 2 years for free as a charter member. I would pay for this service. As I cleaned up my Equifax report, privista notified me of the changes long before I got my dispute results from EQ. Credit Expert (Experian): Probably the best one of the bunch. It's expensive $79, but you get your Experian Score (usually a little higher than FICO), you can get your report every day if you want (been there, done that), you can dispute online. There's a simulator that gives you a vague idea what your score could be like, don't bet your life on it. No alert monitoring, but if you are like most of us, you'll be checking so often that it wouldn't matter. Identity Guard (TU): Burn your 8.99 a month and you'll get about the same results. They have 3 notifications that are pretty worthless, plus I've never seen one. You get your credit report quarterly. They have some bogus simulator. For $8 a month, you could buy a credit report from TU each month. Anyway, nuff said. Plus you can dispute at Transunion without any service here: http://www.transunion.com/Personal/DisputeOnline.asp I had a longer more in depth post when my computer locked up and lost it. So if you have any specific questions, let me know.
Pat, that is a post worthy of a <<<BUMP>>> lots of information packed into that post...thanks for the information. Maybe there should be a "product specifications" forum setup like the recommended letters forum. Those that have paid for or sampled services could post their objective outline of the service, how it works, and what it costs (maybe an opinion that could be a bit more unbiased than random opinion posts in the CreditTalk forum). Anyway, nice post. Thanks. -Peace, Dave
Waited too long and couldn't edit that..I did not mean "unbiased" - I meant - "less flame-ish" than posts like "Privista Sux" or something along those lines...opinions are always biased -Peace, Dave
Re: Which Monitoring Service do you I also subscribe to the Equifax CreditWatch service, but I get email notifications the next day anytime there's any activity at all on the report -- inquiries, tradeline changes, etc. When I first signed up, I experienced the same problem Pat did (no notifications for a long time), but I called customer service and was told that they had experienced a problem with a number of accounts with respect to the email. They "reset" my account, whatever that means, and suddenly the logjam broke. The notifications flowed from that point on. Doc
Re: Which Monitoring Service do you Dave / Martysgirl, Your Welcome Dave, I like the idea of a forum for this. It's one of those things that gets asked all the time, kind of like which service should I use, Junum or Lex, etc. PBM whaddya think?? Doc, Thanks for the tip. I just recently emailed customer service asking if there was some kind of problem... Hopefully they will reset me as well
