26 Jun Free Equifax Credit Monitoring Service
Because identity theft is such a hot topic, the major credit bureaus as well as a number of private companies offer credit monitoring services. These services alert you to potentially fraudulent activity in your credit file. For example, a request for a large increase in your credit limit, or a pattern of frequent cash advances would, in theory, trigger a credit monitoring alarm. Most of the credit monitoring services alert you by an automated email notification.
Credit monitoring services are a profit center for credit reporting agencies. Most cost between $13 and $16 per month, automatically billed to your credit card. These services also depend on the likelihood that once you start the monitoring you will remain as a customer for many months.
I recently ran across a free version of a credit monitoring service offered by Equifax, which is one of the three major national credit bureaus. The service is offered in partnership with PayPal and you must be a member of PayPal to take advantage of the free credit monitoring. Membership in PayPal, by the way, is also free and has no monthly cost. Click here to sign up for PayPal.
If you sign up for the free Equifax/PayPal credit monitoring you will be pitched by Equifax to sign up for a more expensive version of their service. I think that except in very limited situations the free version of the credit monitoring will be sufficient, so ignore all the pitches and promotions for extra cost services.
Jonathan Ginsberg, Esq.
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