Congressman Weiner reminds us to keep our info safe!

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June 6th, 2011 - Posted by Sarah

Another great tip learned from Rep. Weiner: Never take compromising photos of yourself, and definitely never send them to anyone!

So it turns out that Representative Anthony Weiner's (D-New York) Twitter photo scandal wasn't a hack after all. But let it still be a reminder to keep your confidential information safe with identity theft protection services and to change your password!

Can I sign up for and pay annually for an identity theft protection membership service?

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May 3rd, 2011 - Posted by Sarah

The following is an actual user-submitted question:

Q. Can I sign up for and pay annually for an identity theft protection membership service? I prefer to pay annually in lieu of monthly.

A. When you subscribe to a service such as identity theft protection, often it's more convenient or fiscally responsible to make one larger payment a year rather than a small one each month. Luckily, several of the services we review offer annual prepay options, and sometimes it even saves you more money:

TrustedID, $84.12 per year and up: This service monitors a number of different accounts for you and provides you with anti-spyware protection and one three-bureau credit report each year. We think it's the best value of the services out there, especially for families, because it offers a free 14-day trial and a 15% NextAdvisor discount.

LifeLock, $99 per year and up: This service gives you a free 30-day trial and monitors a wide variety of public records as well. NextAdvisor can offer it to you for 10% off. It's also a pretty strong value; it just doesn't have as many features as TrustedID.

Suze Orman's Identity Protector, $125.04 per year and up: Rounding out our annual prepay offers for identity theft protection services is Suze Orman's Identity Protector. When you sign up with Suze, you'll get three-bureau credit scores and reports. Plus this option bears the name of finance guru Suze Orman.

So whether an annual payment fits better into your budget or is less of a hassle, any of these three services could be great choices for you.

Can I get my credit score(s) without signing up for any other services?

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January 10th, 2009 - Posted by Erik

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: Can I get my credit score(s) without signing up for any other services? If so, what would the charge be?

A: Yes, you can get your credit score or scores without signing up for a credit monitoring service, but unlike credit reports, you cannot get your score for free unless you sign up for a credit monitoring service. If you are going to buy your credit score, we recommend buying FICO scores, since those are the type of credit scores more lenders use. You can buy all three of your FICO scores (one from each bureau) directly from myFICO (the company that creates FICO scores) with FICO Credit Complete. The cost is $47.85. This includes not just all three FICO scores, but also all three credit reports, an explanation of each credit score, and the FICO Simulator, which estimates what your FICO score would be if you took different actions such as paying down credit card debt. If you only want to buy one credit score, you can get FICO Standard instead for $15.95. You can pick the bureau you want the score and report from and get all the other features of FICO Credit Complete, but just for the one bureau. Of course, you can still get all three credit scores for free by signing up for a credit monitoring service. Our top pick, Identity Guard Total Protection, gives you a 30-day free trial where you get all three reports and scores for free, in addition to 3-bureau credit monitoring and a laundry list of other features including free internet security software and public record monitoring. You can cancel during the free trial period and you'll have received the scores for free, or don't cancel and you'll pay $14.95 per month for a combination of credit, internet security and identity theft protection services you'd have to pay much, much for anywhere else.

1 million credit scores lowered by Sallie Mae

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May 15th, 2008 - Posted by Joe

The largest provider of student loans in the United States, Sallie Mae, made a critical reporting error which artificially lowered the Equifax credit scores of approximately one million borrowers.

Like all lenders Sallie Mae reports account history information for all their borrowers to all three of the major credit bureaus including Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. In the most recent data transfer an error caused about 10% of all accounts, or about one million total borrowers, to appear delinquent.

Sallie Mae realized the issue and contacted all three credit bureaus. Equifax had already posted the information the impacted individual's accounts which immediately lowered their credit scores. Experian or TransUnion scores were not impacted.

The issue has been resolved and the Equifax credit scores have been restored for impacted individuals. Those who believe they may have been impacted are encouraged to contact Sallie Mae directly at 1-888-2-sallie. Sallie Mae will also provide credit references to impacted consuers upon request.

"We certainly and fully understand the importance of one's credit rating and we worked with urgency to resolve this situation," Said Sallie Mae spokesman Tom Joyce.

Those consumers that utilize a credit report monitoring service would have received immediate alerts when these changes were posted to their Equifax credit report and score. To learn more about credit report monitoring services we suggest visiting our credit report monitoring service reviews and comparison.

FreeCreditReport.com offers 30 day trial of the cheapest three bureau credit monitoring service

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January 10th, 2008 - Posted by Joe

You've probably seen the commercials or heard the jingles – FreeCreditReport.com does a lot of advertising and has beome the most popular way to get your free credit report and score and is the most popular credit monitoring service out there. A subsidiary of Experian, they are marketed heavily online as well as offline with both television and radio ads. But it's not just the advertising – FreeCreditReport.com is a great service. Their credit monitoring service, Triple Advantage, monitors all 3 bureaus and for signing up for the free 30 day trial you get a free Experian credit report and Experian credit score. For the price, $12 per month, this is the best 3-bureau monitoring solution you will find. Others give more data but at a higher price so if your main goal is to monitor all 3 credit bureaus, you can't be FreeCreditReport.com. Since Triple Advantage constantly monitors all 3 bureaus you receive an e-mail alert whenever there is a change or inquiry to your credit. Should you discover an identity theft problem, Triple Advantage has a nice added feature in that they assign a fraud resolution specialist to your account to help you fix the problem. They also provide more identity theft insurance than other monitoring services ($50k), although in general we don't think this type of insurance is really that valuable. Freecreditreport.com gives you access to unlimited Experian credit reports and scores once you join. This gives you the option to get a credit report and credit score for any reason any time you want, and the best part, at no additional charge. Having a free 30 day trial is also a great feature. You can check out the service, get a free report and score, and if you don't like it for any reason or really just wanted your score and report, you can cancel and be charged nothing. Like most of the other services that offer a free trial you are charged the monthly fee once your free trial ends if you haven't already cancelled. The main downside we see to this service is that the free credit report and score is from Experian only. Although the monitoring service monitors all 3 bureaus, you don't get all 3 credit reports or all 3 credit scores. Also, the free credit score uses the Experian scoring system, which is slightly different than the FICO score used by most lenders when making credit decisions, although the two scores are usually very close. Overall, we highly recommend FreeCreditReport.com's Triple Advantage service With a 30 day free trial, a price of $12 per month, free Experian credit report and credit score, and unlimited credit reports and scores after the free trial, this service is the best value at its price point.

Equifax offers free 3-in-1 credit report and 3 bureau credit report monitoring

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January 8th, 2008 - Posted by Joe

Equifax Credit Watch Gold 3-in-1 Monitoring Plus Score Power is our favorite among credit monitoring services. As a special promotion for NextAdvisor.com visitors, you now get a free 30-day trial when you sign up from our site. When you sign up for the free 30 day trial, you also get a free Equifax FICO score and a free 3-Bureau credit report (reports from 3 bureaus laid out side-by-side for easy comparison). Since the FICO score is the score most lenders use to make decisions, this is the best score you can get. Equifax actually gives you an entire Score Power report which not only includes your FICO score but also a FICO Score Simulator that estimates what your score would be if you took certain actions, as well as a full explanation of factors affecting your credit score. And of course you want to see your reports from all 3 bureaus to make sure there are no errors on any of them (they all contain slightly different data) so this is also the best credit report you can get. Equifax is giving you both the report and score free just for trying their monitoring service for 30 days, so if you don't like it you can cancel and have paid nothing for your FICO score and 3-Bureau report, which you would have to pay $40 for if you bought it separately. We see no reason to cancel, though, as the monitoring service is excellent. We think monitoring all three bureaus is very important for both monitoring your credit and protecting against identity theft because sometimes lenders will only report a credit event to one bureau. Equifax constantly monitors all 3 bureaus and sends you an email alert within 24 hours of a change to any one of your 3 credit reports. You can also get an updated Equifax credit report any time you want. At only $14.95 per month after the free 30-day trial, this service is an excellent value. The only thing this service doesn't provide is FICO scores from your TransUnion and Experian reports as well as ongoing access to updated TransUnion and Experian credit reports. While it certainly would be nice to have the additional scores, we don't view this as a major drawback. And since you get your initial 3-bureau report and are alerted when any of the reports change, this essentially eliminates the need to get the updated reports (and you do get an updated Equifax report any time you want). Also, you only get an updated Score Power report (which includes your updated FICO score) once a year. Overall, with its free 30 day trial, free FICO score, free 3-bureau credit report and 3-bureau credit monitoring, Equifax Credit Watch Gold 3-in-1 Monitoring Plus Score Power gives you everything you need at the right price