Continued from Part 1 of Choosing a Credit Report Monitoring Service…

Here are more things to consider when choosing a credit report monitoring service…

Change of Address: Each time you move and change address, a new entry gets made in your credit report. Your selected credit monitoring service needs to inform you of every change made, so that the appearance of one that’s not accurate flags up either an entry error or the possibility of identity tampering.

Changes in Employment: Employment is tracked on a credit report as a major feature of credit worthiness. It also can be an identity theft indicator. Should an employer you don’t recognize appear on your report; investigate it immediately.

Know What Your Credit Monitoring Service is Monitoring

Make sure you engage a credit monitoring service that doesn’t do anything wrong, as far as you can gauge. Check the small print and ask questions about charges – you don’t want any unexpected ones above their basic monthly fee. Nor do you want the delight and surprise of an extra charge for perhaps exceeding the number allowed for printed credit reports requested by you. Get the fine detail on what is actually monitored, how frequently reviews take place and whether they cover all three CRAs in their monitoring service.

You are the expert on your own credit and history so it would be sensible to cast your expert eye over your credit reports personally at least a couple of times a year just as a cautionary measure – you might pick up on something the service missed.

Credit report monitoring, either by yourself or from a hired service, can’t stop identity theft though it could help in spotting identity theft early enough to stop it causing too much damage and assist with a quicker recovery. There’s no magic shield to stop identity theft, so failing that, make it harder; protect yourself and prevent it happening easily by judicious monitoring of your credit report for any suspicious unusual activity.