Are the monthly fees per person or per family?

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August 3rd, 2009 - Posted by Caitlin

The following post in our Reader Question series is an actual user submitted question. To maintain the integrity of the original question, we do not edit or change reader questions in any way.

Q: Are the monthly fees you cite per person or per family? The reason I ask is that I was recently told by Equifax that I was paying one monthly rate for monitoring my credit and one monthly rate for monitoring my wife's credit. Why? Because some of our credit cards were in her name, some in my name. I said two charges were outrageous and stopped their service. But now I wonder, since everyone's prices are about the same, whether another company would be any cheaper. What is your advice?

A: Since the three credit bureaus maintain credit files on an individual basis and do not merge the credit files of married couples, it is typical for credit report monitoring services to charge per person. As a married couple, some of your accounts and information are likely to overlap, but much of your credit history will differ, as will your credit scores. And if an identity thief were to open a fraudulent account in either your or your wife's name, it would only appear on one credit report. In order to get a clear picture of your current credit health and detect new account fraud, we would recommend that you and your wife each sign up for a credit monitoring service. Our credit report monitoring comparison chart should make it easy to determine which service best meets your needs.