I've been using Equifax's Credit Monitoring Service for a few years, and I'm wondering how the knowledgable people in this newsgroup feel about the usefulness of such a service. The service is supposed to "instantly" notify me (by e-mail) of any large increases to my credit card balances, and if any new accounts/inquiries are made in my name. After the following incident I canceled the service. I would appreciate any comments about what I expereinced. Here's my story...
Yesterday (11/10/06), I got a credit card bill that contained 3 charges (transactions dated 11/2/06) that were not mine. I immediately notified the credit card company and the account was closed. The CC company is now investigating. However, then I wondered why I was never notified by Equifax that my balance had increased suddenly by approximately 400%, so I called them to complain. The Customer Service Rep explained to me that Equifax never notified me about it because the credit card company had not yet notified Equifax of these charges. She explained that Equifax typically gets updates from the credit card companies only once every 30 days, so they hadn't heard about these charges even though they already appear on my bill. (I subsequently verified this 30-day time frame with the CC company.) Since the CC company sent their monthly updated to Equifax on 10/31 (with the next one due on 11/30), and these charges were made to my card on 11/2, I wouldn't have been notified by Equifax for another 3-1/2 weeks!
I then asked the Customer Service Rep whether Equifax would notify Experian and TransUnion of what happened with this card for me, since "Identity Theft Protection Services" is supposed to also be included in my coverage. The answer was NO. So, I asked the rep exactly what my $100/year is paying for-- No prompt notification of suspected fraudulent charges, and no help with covering the bases on Identity Theft. After a long silence, she responded that I have $20,000 coverage for fraudulent charges. I responded that that's also useless since the CC company will remove any disputed charges that I report promptly. Her only response was a plaintive "I'm sorry..."
What the heck?
Needless to say, I canceled my coverage on the spot. I now feel that their advertising for these services is at least misleading and possibly fraudulant. I'd be interested in hearing of anyone's experiences with these types of services and/or comments about my experience. Are they all this shoddy? Or is there some valuable service that they provide that I'm simply missing?
If someone knows of a reasonably priced protection plan that actually works as advertised, I'd be interested in hearing about it (strictly for protection against someone else opening an account in my name). But if they all perform like this, forget it!
Thanks for listening!