National Consumer Protection Week:
How To Protect Yourself as a Consumer

This week is National Consumer Protection Week, and we're giving tips on how to protect your credit and identity as a consumer. Do you know how to monitor your credit to make sure that you're the only user? Or, how to know if your identity is stolen? Well you're in luck, because if you practice these tips then you'll be prepared for any identity theft that may be coming your way.

Enroll in a credit report monitoring service: Knowing your credit is beneficial for many reasons including keeping track of your credit history, checking for errors and catching potential fraud. Our two top-rated credit report monitoring services — Identity Guard and PrivacyGuard — both monitor your credit for all 3 bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) to make sure that your get a thorough credit report. Identity Guard comes with a free 30-day trial and costs $14.99 per month for quarterly credit reports — among other services — while PrivacyGuard comes with a 30-day trial  for $1 and costs $14.99 per month and offers monthly credit reports — among other services.

Visit our credit report monitoring FAQs for more information about why it's important to monitor your credit or our compare page to learn more about credit report monitoring services.

Sign up for an identity theft protection service: Identity theft is one of the the fastest growing crimes in the U.S. Identity thieves are using your personal information to gain access to money, credit and goods and services in your name — that's why identity theft protection is important. Identity theft protection services work hand-in-hand with credit monitoring services because when your identity is stolen usually the thief attempts or opens a credit card in your name. That's why most of our identity theft protection services also offer credit monitoring services — including  Identity Guard, TrustedID, Lifelock, PrivacyGuard, SmarterCredit, ProtectMyID.com and Equifax. The prices of the services vary depending on which service you choose to sign up for.

Check out our identity theft protection compare page to learn more about the individual services or visit our FAQs to learn more about identity theft.

Practicing these tips in your everyday life can help you to become a well-educated consumer as well as protect you from future possible identity thefts or errors on your credit score.

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