What Are Credit Monitoring Services?

Credit monitoring services are an okay idea, but it is really just a way for the bureaus to make money on credit reports. They are playing upon people's fears of identity theft. Depending on what they offer, you can either get access to your credit report online or maybe some identity test that will cover your assistance. A lot of that appears to be expensive and even unnecessary. You can do your own credit monitoring service just by staggering the free credit reports you get throughout the year. Pull your Transunion report in January, and then four months later you get one from Equifax. It's sort of a very low-level credit monitoring service, and of course, not all creditors report to all three bureaus, so the information might be different. If you are a victim of identity theft and put an alert on your credit record, that will automatically generate a credit report for yourself.