Benefits of Score Watching Products

Many of the credit reporting agencies offer a service that allows individuals to pay a fee and receive notifications whenever an activity has occurred that will have an effect on your credit score.    There are numerous benefits to knowing the activities that adjust your score, as well as other rewards from the credit reporting agencies offering the service.

Equifax Score Watch (tm)

With the Score Watch (tm) service of Equifax, individuals can receive email and wireless notifications whenever something is going on your report that is about to change your score.  This is beneficial for a number of reasons.  First, you'll be able to know right away if there is an issue of fraud or identity theft, and have a better chance of stopping it before it becomes a huge problem.  Additionally, you'll know whether or not the score change will affect an interest rate that you may get on a new loan- since having higher credit scores means better interest rates, and vice versa.

The service from Equifax also includes two free reports and discounts on any report you want to purchase after the first two.

Equifax helps Score Watch (tm) subscribers by offering them a detailed analysis of their credit and how they compare to the nationwide averages.  They even provide information on how a lender would view your credit report, and information about how to best improve your credit score.

Experian Credit Manager

The service offered through Experian will scan your credit report daily and alert you to any changes.  This is done in an attempt to stop identity theft before it happens.  As a subscriber of Credit Manager, individuals can view their report whenever they want, as well as see their credit score.

Identity Guard (r)

This program monitors all 3 of your credit reports for changes and activity.  You will be notified by email or wireless alerts of changes to any credit report (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion).  

The Identity Guard (r) service also includes an analyzer that can show you how certain activities, like applying for a new loan or credit card account will affect your score in each of the three credit reporting agencies reports. 

Importance of Credit Score Monitoring

Knowing your personal credit score is useful in determining whether or not you should apply for a loan or credit card.  It gives you an idea what kind of interest rate to expect on new credit accounts.  You can get your score for free from each of the major credit reporting agencies once each year, but monitoring your credit score on a regular basis is a better option.  Identity fraud is becoming a common crime, and you can protect yourself by knowing immediately when changes are made to your report. It allows you to contact the appropriate authorities and keep the situation from becoming a huge mess.

Credit score monitoring services also give you the opportunity to correct any errors made.  If a creditor doesn't apply your payment properly and report you as "late", you'll know immediately and can make them update the records to have the delinquency removed from your record.  If you only obtain your report once each year, you won't remember if you were late or not!