It is important to take as many necessary precautions as possible to protect yourself and your credit. Monitoring your credit is a tool that can be used to make sure your credit remains in the best shape possible. Credit monitoring can also alert you when new activity has been generated – potentially saving you from identity theft and fraud.
Credit monitoring watches for:
- Balance changes
- Accounts being opened or closed
- Fluctuations in credit scores
- Fraud alerts
- Inquiries and reviews of credit
- Changes in personal information
Credit monitoring does not stop fraud or identity theft, but it’s a measure consumers can take to protect their assets from identity criminals. This is especially true in today’s world considering all the recent security breaches that major organizations have experienced, more people are now at risk of fraud and identity theft.
*It’s important to understand, if you see an unknown account on your credit reports and it is in good standing it’s likely NOT fraud. Fraudulent accounts are often delinquent and reflect poorly on the victims credit. Good accounts that are not yours could be another person with the same name or birth date that the bureaus mistakenly put on your report.
Excellent credit can deliver huge savings on loans, more buying power to purchase properties, and ultimately a better quality of life. More importantly, with the housing market on the rise, tighter restrictions on mortgage lending, ID Theft running rampant and massive errors being revealed on consumer credit reports, being aware of the state of our credit has become crucial. Unfortunately most people don’t look at their credit until they need to use it. Usually it’s when they hear “You have been declined“ that they suddenly begin to scramble to try to correct mistakes or delinquencies. Credit monitoring allows consumers to be alerted to changes in balances, knowledge of accounts being opened, delinquencies, and a view into who is looking at their credit.
To use a monitoring product well a consumer must understand how to read their credit profile and many people are too busy to even learn about their credit. They think that paying a company to watch their credit will insure them against any problems.
With the consistent hacking of personal information occurring in today’s technology-driven environment anyone with good credit must be alert to every change occurring on credit. There are many credit monitoring products available to purchase online, and although they cannot completely stop identity theft & credit card fraud they can be a great way to curb the degree of damage.
We recommend you speak with a credit expert as well to get the right monitoring product or if you believe you have been the victim of identity theft. We also offer a monitoring product for consumers who have been the victim of identity theft or are concerned about monitoring their credit for any possible signs of identity theft. With this product, our credit experts will monitor all three credit reports on a daily basis looking out for significant and/or suspicious changes.
