Warning: That $40 credit monitoring service wasn't worth a dime

I signed up for one of those fancy credit monitoring plans last year thinking it would catch everything. Paid $40 a month for 8 months before a small collections account showed up on my report. The service never flagged it, I found it by accident checking my free annual report. Anyone else have a similar experience with paid monitoring vs just doing it yourself?

4 comments

4 Comments

reese_hayes7111d ago

Heard a news segment about this a few months back where they tested a bunch of those services and most of them missed stuff just like that. Freeze your credit reports instead, it's way cheaper (free actually) and blocks a lot more trouble than paying someone to watch.

jamesf2910d ago

EXACTLY. A credit freeze costs zero dollars and actually does something. These monitoring services are just profit machines that make you feel safe without actually preventing identity theft. Freeze your credit with Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. It takes 15 minutes per site. Paying $20 a month for someone to "watch" is just flushing money down the toilet.

corap213d ago

Gotta jump in here and say a credit freeze is not free in all states. Some states charge a fee for freezing and unfreezing your credit, usually around $5 to $10 each time. Also, if you're not careful with the PIN they give you, getting it unfrozen later can be a huge headache. Plus, freezing your credit won't stop someone from using your existing accounts or stealing your tax refund, so it's not a complete solution either. Just want to make sure people know it's not always as simple and free as people make it sound.

jadej5011d ago

My buddy paid for that same thing for over a year and found out the hard way when a fraudulent loan got opened in his name and the service never sent him a single alert. Pretty much just wasted $480 and got nothing for it.