Five Ways On How A Credit Monitoring Service Helps Rebuild Your Credit

One of the most effective ways to repair your post-bankruptcy credit is to get new credit. But, as you get that new credit you need an efficient way to monitor the effect it is having on your credit report. To do that, you should use a credit monitoring service. While you can do the monitoring yourself, using a credit monitoring service is helpful for a number of reasons.

1. Credit monitoring services monitor any inquiry made on your credit report and give you the reason for the inquiry. By getting regular reports of the queries on your credit report and the reasons for those queries you can easily discover any unauthorized activities being done under your name. 2. Credit monitoring services notify you when any new credit accounts are opened in your name. Obviously, you’ll know about the accounts you open. But, one of the ways identity thieves use your private information is to open up new credit accounts in your name.

Then, they max out those accounts and leave you with the bill. A credit monitoring service protects you from the damages of identity theft because you’ll know immediately if a new credit account has been opened in your name. 3. Credit monitoring services monitor any changes to your mailing address on your credit accounts. Another tactic of identity thieves is to change your mailing address for your credit cards.

They do this so that your credit card statements are sent to them. When they get those statements, they steal your account information and use it to run up charges on your account. If this ever happens to you, it could take you months to sort out the problem and figure out exactly what happened.

With a credit monitoring service you’ll get an immediate notification when there are unauthorized changes of address on any of your credit accounts. 4. Credit monitoring services monitor credit limit changes on your credit cards. Identity thieves like to request increases on your credit card limits. This allows them to run up even more debt for you. A good credit monitoring service alerts you to such changes as soon as they happen. 5. Credit monitoring services give you quick, convenient access to your credit report.

The ability to access your account information online is a big time saver. And, you can opt to have the credit bureaus email you any alerts on your credit report account. Those alerts are delivered as soon as a change is detected in your account. This makes it easier for you to avoid becoming a victim of fraud.

Online access to your credit report also makes it much easier for you to correct any inaccurate information on your account very quickly and easily. Using a credit monitoring service has many benefits for you as you recover from bankruptcy and start the process of rebuilding your credit. If you want to secure you financial future and make the most of your fresh start out of bankruptcy, you owe it to yourself to sign up for a good credit monitoring service.

Houston city workers' personal information may have been compromised after a laptop was stolen from a human resources employee's car earlier this month, and workers are being offered free credit monitoring and identity restoration services as a result. Those services are not free to taxpayers, however, as City Council learned Wednesday.

141,574 contract with AllClear ID Inc. to provide credit monitoring, fraud alerts and notifications of personal data breaches. The laptop was stolen Feb. 2, the city announced Friday. The computer contained sensitive personal information for an unknown number of city employees, including names, addresses, birthdays, Social Security numbers and medical information. City officials said the employee failed to follow training about keeping sensitive information private. City employees are discouraged from taking their work laptops out of the office unless the sensitive information found on the laptop is secured by encryption. Trump Calls Out Theresa May's Brexit Deal in Chaotic Start to U.K. Democratic candidates for governor debate, lash out at Gov.

A system that monitors a consumer’s credit reports for signs of possible fraud. Credit monitoring services notify consumers when new information, such as a new account or credit inquiry, shows up on one or more of their credit reports. The consumer can then follow up and make sure the new information is legitimate. Credit bureaus, banks and other financial service companies offer credit monitoring services; features and prices vary.

15 per month and are billed to the consumer’s credit card in perpetuity until the consumer cancels the subscription. Consumers who sign up for a credit monitoring service should understand these services’ limitations. Credit monitoring services have a limited ability to detect fraud. Some only check a consumer’s credit report with one credit bureau, meaning they could miss fraudulent activity that shows up on another bureau’s report.

Some credit monitoring services scan the Internet looking for consumers’ Social Security numbers, but finding a number doesn’t give the consumer or the credit monitoring service provider any power to prevent the number’s unauthorized use. Credit monitoring services usually also advertise that they provide financial compensation to make up for lost wages and expenses a consumer might occur in cleaning up an identity theft incident, but there are significant limitations on payouts.