Usefulness of Credit Monitoring Service <Longish>

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!

Reply to
BRH
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Does not surprise me one bit... Cal

Reply to
Cal

It's not worth it. Some credit card companies (Discover Card, for example) will directly send you e-mail alerts if a purchase over a certain dollar amount (user configured) posts to your account, or they will call you if an unusually large on-line purchase is detected. They all typically let you check your account on-line, where you can frequently see temp authorizations that are only a few hours old, and certainly any posted transactions by the following day.

Earlier this century I paid for a similar credit monitoring service for one year, before the annualcreditreport.com law was passed (three free reports per year, still being rolled out nationwide as I recall). The one and only time it alerted me, turns out my car/house insurance was about to be transferred to another carrier who ran a credit inquiry (which still baffles me, why insurance coverage should have anything to do with my credit rating, since the premium is due in advance). My insurance agent hadn't yet gotten around to informing me about this, but in the end my advance knowledge didn't change anything, so there was really no value to it.

-Mark Bole

Reply to
Mark Bole

Thanks for posting this. It confirms my suspicions.

Best regards, Bob

Reply to
zxcvbob

In theory, they are supposed to notify you of any attempt to access your file when inquiries are made for the purpose of opening a new credit line. The words 'identity theft' are misused (as are many words such as 'saving', 'investment', and 'is') Any instance of someone using someone else's card or account is considered identity theft. This number approaches millions of instances per year, I believe. Yet, true identity theft which I thought was properly defined as "the opening of new credit accounts under another person's name" and not an instance of the use of an established account.

You can understand that any employee of any store where you use you credit card can take the number and attempt unauthorized charges. This is different than someone proactively opening an account in your name. You can insist that the three reporting agencies put a block on your account. This would permanently freeze anyone's access to you information and history for the purpose of opening a new line of credit. You would have to lift the hold if you were in the market for a mortgage or wanted to get a new credit card. The agencies don't like this as it cuts into their business. Not too long ago, the Boston Globe, in a remarkable case of "well, excuuuuse me*" printed the names and credit card numbers of all their subscribers on computer paper. They then wrapped the Sunday papers with the printouts and sent the papers out. Within two days, a co-worker of mine was told that nearly $10,000 in charges was made overseas on the account. Me, I had used a virtual number, the limit on the number was the annual subscription fee, so the account had zero credit available and no chance for going over. I use the virtual number for all online or phone transactions.

As another poster stated, you can get the free report at

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year. But since there are 3, you should cycle through every 4 months. My wife and I stagger the requests so we are two months out of sync with each other, getting a report every two months. JOE

*I hope the Steve Martin routine reference was understood here.
Reply to
joetaxpayer

With free once a month credit score from Providian (just for having a credit card with them) and three free credit reports a year, one from each bureau, credit monitoring services are of no use anyway.

And I don't think there is any service that can notify you that promptly because as you said, nobody knows about it until your cc company reports it. So the only way to get prompt reporting is if it were directly from your cc company reporting your transactions to you.

With > I've been using Equifax's Credit Monitoring Service for a few years, and

======================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT: Please trim the post to which you are responding. "Trim" means that except for a FEW lines to add context, the previous post is deleted.

Reply to
ibookdb.net

are there any credit monitoring services that inform you when inquires/requests for credit are made?

That sort of service would actually be useful and orthogonal to any protections already built in to any individual credit accounts. You'd know when/if anyone was applying for credit in your name.

However, everything I've seen has had a monthly fee such that it's high priced insurance to get that info in near real time vs reviewing your credit report for free annually to check for any fraudulent accounts.

Best Regards,

-- Todd H.

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Reply to
Todd H.

I'm a Wachovia customer and I use Quicken to track my finances. However, none of my CC's are from Wachovia. Can you explain what the "One Stop" form with Wachovia is all about, and where I can find info on it?

Thanks!

Reply to
BRH

Thanks for your reponse. Can you elaborate on what you mean by a "virtual number"?

Reply to
BRH

Of course - I have cards from MBNA (now Bank of America) and Citibank that both offer the feature which works like this; When I want to make an online purchase (or phone, for that matter) I go to the credit card issuer website and log in to my account. I then ask for a new CC number worth, say $50, good for 2 months. Up pops a image of a credit card, new #, and exp date (even the 3 digit extra that would be on the back). I use that number for the purchase, and that's it. By setting the value to equal the purchase you are about to make, it's a one use, throw away. In 5 years of doing this I found one vendor that was, for some unknown reason, unable to accept this, and for that I used a card I kept that had a low credit line.

Given the guarantees most card issuer have against fraud, using virtual numbers is strictly your choice, but for those of us who are paranoid about the potential idiots who will use our data to, er, wrap fish, I'll continue to use them. JOE

Reply to
joetaxpayer

Because of having run into similar unauthorized charges in the past, I now check my credit card activity online every few days, as well as having the card issuer email me an alert when unusual activity occurs.

Reply to
John Richards

One Stop is Wachovia's name for Yodlee's MoneyCenter account aggregator. Here's Wachovia's explanation of it ->

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and here's Yodlee's site ->
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with a demo ->
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When you log into your accounts on Wachovia's site, the link for One Stop should be under the list of your checking/savings/etc accounts in the View Accounts / My Accounts tab. The accounts you can track with One Stop aren't limited to those you have with Wachovia. Track anything you like that's in their list - credit cards, utility bills, investments, bank accounts, etc.

Yodlee also provides free access to their latest version. The link for registration is at the bottom of their home page, but be aware that it is a beta-testing site. Things break without warning.

Reply to
nospam

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