Credit Monitoring – Worth It??

You may have heard about credit monitoring, but may not be exactly sure what it entails or if it can protect you in there is a data breach or hack that allows your information to fall into the wrong hands.

How Can Credit Monitoring Help You?

Identity theft is one of the great big fears to come out of a data breach or hacking situation. This is where someone else halfway across the country, outside the country, or even in your same state assumes your credit persona and takes out credit in your name.

Unfortunately, these people rarely have the intention of paying for the things they purchase with the good credit you’ve worked so hard to build. This means you’re left holding the bag (or in this case, interest bearing bill) for their high dollar purchases.

Credit monitoring is a valuable tool that can help you become aware of fraudulent accounts that have been opened in your name, as well as loans that may have been taken out using your Social Security number.

Credit monitoring looks for these suspicious activities as they are happening. It notifies you immediately so that you can take action at the first sign of trouble, rather than only finding out after serious damage has been done to your reputation, credit rating, and, possibly, to your financial security.

What Does Credit Monitoring Involve?

Depending on the service you subscribe to, credit monitoring can include a wide range of features. These are some you might want to make sure are included in the credit monitoring services you choose to protect your identity from harm.

• Daily monitoring of credit reports.
• Daily scanning for unauthorized use of your Social Security Number.
• Protection for lost or stolen wallets.
• Nationwide alerts for change of address notifications in the event that someone changes your address.

Credit monitoring is a proactive step you can take to protect your financial interests from identity thieves. You should review your credit reports often in order to look for suspicious activities that might indicate identity theft. Report anything suspicious right away in order to reduce your risks and, in a worst case scenario, limit the scale of the damage.