Credit Report Service Reviews & Prices

Identity Guard Review: Credit Report ServiceGo to Site | Back to Chart

[Editor's Note: For a limited time, Identity Guard is offering an exclusive $3.00/mo (18%) discount and free 30-day trial to NextAdvisor.com visitors. You cannot get this deal anywhere else. There is no coupon code required to take advantage of this offer, so simply click on any Identity Guard link on NextAdvisor.com to take advantage of this limited time discount pricing.]

If fear of identity theft is your primary reason for credit report monitoring, there is no question that Identity Guard Total Protection is your best option. Even if identity theft is just one factor, Identity Guard's exhaustive list of features and 30-day free trial make it worth serious consideration. It provides the most data you can get as well as the longest free trial. In addition to daily 3-bureau credit report monitoring and free credit scores from all three bureaus, Identity Guard Total Protection offers an extremely impressive and potent arsenal of tools to stop identity theft and credit card fraud.

Identity Guard goes far beyond other credit report monitoring services by also monitoring public records for any changes in your name (as well as giving you a free public record report and an updated one every quarter), scanning for application or social security fraud, and monitoring the Internet's black market for any use of your credit cards or other personal information. They also include anti-keylogging software, lost wallet protection (they can cancel your credit card accounts and give you up to $2,000 advance if you need it) and a Personal ID Risk Assessment. Identity Guard Total Protection includes $1,000,000 in identity theft insurance to cover you in case you somehow are still victimized while enrolled in the service.

Perhaps the most notable extra service that's included in Identity Guard Total Protection is the free Zone Alarm Internet Security Suite, an award-winning Internet security solution including anti-virus, firewall, anti-phishing and anti-spam software with hourly security updates. This normally costs $49.95 to buy but is free with your Total Protection enrollment and includes all virus definition updates and annual renewals as long as you maintain your membership. Of course if you don't want or need this security software you don't have to download it.

Immediately upon enrolling, Identity Guard Total Protection gives you daily 3-bureau credit report monitoring with email alerts and your credit scores from all 3 bureaus. The scores are based on the CreditXpert scoring system, which isn't as popular as the FICO system that most lenders use, but is a very good approximation of it. When we cross-referenced our credit scores from Identity Guard with our actual FICO scores, they were virtually identical. Identity Guard gives you credit scores from all 3 bureaus and an updated public record report every 3 months.

Your subscription includes access to a very useful credit analyzer. You can try out different scenarios, such as paying off your credit card by a certain amount or opening up a new loan, to see how your credit score will be affected. If you are monitoring your credit, this analyzer can help you to make the best choices to raise your credit score.

Identity Guard recently updated their member center so that it is now extremely useful. They make it easy to see what identity protection tools you have and haven't activated as well as what updated information is available to you. They are also great about letting you know via email when you have new reports or scores available. Be sure to register all your credit card and bank accounts right away to take advantage of their excellent identity theft protection. In the event of a credit card theft, you can report the incident to Identity Guard and they will handle all the details for you, including reporting the cards as stolen and getting new cards issued to you. Identity Guard offers generous customer service phone hours (8am-11pm M-F and 9am-6pm Sat) as well as postal mail and e-mail contact methods. When we tried contacting them, a customer service representative answered almost immediately, and was able to provide useful advice about the service. Reporting for lost or stolen cards can be done on the phone or through your account, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

As a huge bonus, Identity Guard Total Protection now gives users who sign up from NextAdvisor.com a 30-day free trial of their service. So even if you decide to cancel the service after your 30-day free trial, you get to keep at no cost all 3 credit scores, a public records report and the Zone Alarm Internet Security Suite for free. Buying all these separately would cost you over $100.

Overall, Identity Guard Total Protection can't be beat in terms of features and functionality. It offers both a great credit report monitoring service and the best identity theft protection you can get.

Equifax w/Score Power Review: Credit Report ServiceGo to Site | Back to Chart

Equifax Credit Watch Gold 3-in-1 Monitoring Plus Score Power is one of our favorite 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. 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.

Equifax gives you your FICO score and Score Power report for free just for trying their credit report monitoring service for 30 days, so if you don't like it you can cancel and have paid nothing for your FICO score and report. 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 report 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. Equifax's monitoring service is more advanced than others. It allows you to be alerted not just upon significant changes to your report such as a credit inquiry or the opening of a new account, but also on small updates like balance changes for a credit card account. (Note that you can only be alerted on these smaller changes to your Equifax credit report, not your Experian or Transunion report. All major changes to those two other credit reports are still monitored, though.) You can customize these alerts by setting thresholds of when you should be notified, such as at least a 25% balance change or a $200 balance change. While these minor changes may not seem like a big deal, they can affect your credit score and could also alert you that someone else is fraudulently using your credit card. Equifax Credit Watch Gold also gives you $1,000,000 of identity theft insurance as part of the service.

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 credit reports. While it certainly would be nice to have the additional scores, we don't view this as a major drawback. Additionally, 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 and report, and excellent 3-bureau credit monitoring, Equifax Credit Watch Gold 3-in-1 Monitoring Plus Score Power gives you everything you need at the right price.

Trusted ID Review: Credit Report ServiceGo to Site | Back to Chart

TrustedID offers an excellent 3-bureau credit report monitoring solution along with best-in-class identity theft protection. It is a particularly strong value for families. At just $10.42/month for individuals and $20/month for families (after annual prepay), it's priced at a discount to services with similar features and protection. The family plan is unique among credit report monitoring services and something we hear many consumers ask for. Since each spouse has his or her own credit report, families wishing to monitor their credit and protect themselves from identity theft need to be monitoring both reports. TrustedID allows you to accomplish this in their family plan. Not only can you monitor both spouses' credit reports at all three bureaus and get each spouse's credit scores and credit reports from all three bureaus, you can also sign anyone else in your household up for their additional identity theft protection services. While the family plan will only monitor two people's credit reports, there is no limit on the number of people you can subscribe to their additional monitoring. Since TrustedID started out as an identity theft protection service, they really shine when it comes to protecting your identity in multiple ways.

TrustedID's Internet black market monitoring service monitors your personal information such as Social Security number, credit cards and bank accounts for any suspicious activity. It begins working as soon as you sign up by taking the Social Security number you used in the sign-up process and monitoring its use immediately. Adding all your credit card and bank account numbers is quick and easy and you should do this right away. This service monitors the Internet's black market for the use of any of these account numbers and immediately alerts you if it finds any of your numbers are being bought or sold. Trusted ID also monitors the Internet and public records for any changes to or misuse of your name, address, or Social Security number. TrustedID is the only service we've found that also gives you medical record protection. The service will help you request your medical benefit history from all your providers so you can make sure no one else has been receiving benefits in your name. They then monitor your account for any suspicious usage on an ongoing basis. TrustedID recently introduced a new feature, the Identity Threat Score, which provides a gauge of your individual risk level based on an analysis of the various records and databases that TrustedID monitors. Your score will help TrustedID's protection specialists determine the necessary steps to proactively protect your identity.

TrustedID's $1,000,000 identity theft warranty starts the moment you sign up so you can be confident you'll have the peace of mind that comes with their warranty and restoration services should they ever be needed (more on that below). TrustedID also helps you send letters to opt out of junk mail in general and credit card and other lending offers in particular. Not only do these clog your mailbox and kill trees, but they are also a prime target for identity thieves to steal, gain your personal information and open a credit card account in your name. As part of your account, you are offered a service called CreditLock, which makes your credit report at all 3 bureaus unavailable to everyone without permission. While this is a good option for those who rarely use their credit, or those who are stationed overseas, it does cost $44.95 to lock your credit reports with all three bureaus and $39.95 to unlock them - every time! We typically only recommend using this feature if you know you have been the victim of an identity theft. In that situation, it is extremely valuable. Finally, TrustedID also includes free anti-spyware software with your membership. This is definitely a nice added feature. The software is branded with TrustedID's brand but is developed and maintained by Sana Security, a highly reputable and well-reviewed identity theft prevention software company.

You can get access to your credit scores and reports from all three bureaus as soon as you sign up for TrustedID, as well as your three-bureau credit report monitoring. This makes TrustedID a very complete credit report monitoring solution in addition to its history as a great id theft protection service. The only thing it lacks is ongoing updates to your credit scores and reports, as the ones you get at sign-up are the only ones included in the service. Of course, you'll be able to continue tracking any changes to your credit reports with the credit monitoring which is an ongoing part of the service, but you won't be sure how exactly how these changes affect your score. It's also worth noting that the credit scores are not FICO scores, but are good approximations of your FICO score so we don't view this as a major drawback.

For those that want to take the additional step of setting fraud alerts on their credit files, Trusted ID has developed a simple interface that walks you through the process of setting your own fraud alerts online with Equifax, one of the three major credit bureaus. Once your fraud alerts are set, Equifax will notify the other two credit bureaus, Experian and TransUnion, on your behalf and fraud alerts will be set on your credit files at those two bureaus as well. After you set your fraud alerts the first time they will need to be renewed every 90 days. Trusted ID sends an email notification that reminds you to reset your fraud alerts before they lapse. However, we have had a couple of issues with these notifications working properly so we would recommend you make a note on your calendar and not rely on TrustedID alon for this. The downside to setting fraud alerts on your credit file is that it might delay a credit application process because your identity must be confirmed before an account is open (usually you will be called and must speak to a representative of the credit grantor), but for those that are very concerned about identity theft this is a small price to pay it will not hurt your credit or prevent you from getting credit.

TrustedID's ID theft service warranty covers you for up to $1,000,000 in costs to recover from identity theft. While this is a great benefit, direct monetary losses from identity theft are almost always much less, since you are not legally responsible for paying any fraudulent debt accumulated by a thief. The real cost of identity theft is the loss of ability to get credit for an extended period of time, the time and effort it takes to restore your good name, and many other adverse consequences that can even include mistaken incarceration. Thus, we think the most valuable part of the warranty is the identity theft restoration service that TrustedID gives you as part of the warranty. In the extremely unlikely event that your identity is stolen while you're a TrustedID member, they will pay for and perform all the tasks necessary to restore your identity, which can be extremely time-consuming, difficult and costly.

We've found TrustedID customer service representatives to be very helpful and easy to reach at any time of the day or week. TrustedID has done a nice job of improving their online account dashboard so you can now see all the different ways your being protected and whether your account is missing any information. Overall, TrustedID is an excellent credit report monitoring service that really shines when it comes to identity theft protection and providing a great value for families.

CreditCheck Total Review: Credit Report ServiceGo to Site | Back to Chart

CreditCheck Total combines the most credit data you can get (unlimited credit reports and credit scores from all three bureaus), 3-bureau credit monitoring and a $1 seven day trial. This great combination makes it one of our favorite offers. The only drawback is that at $22.95 per month, it's a bit pricier than the other credit monitoring services we recommend. For anyone applying for any type of credit (this can range from getting a mortgage to simply not having to pay in advance for a utility bill), we believe you should know your scores and the content of your credit report from all three bureaus as in some cases the data from each bureau can vary widely.

CreditCheck Total gives you all three scores and all three credit reports for $1 when you sign up for your 7-day trial. This would cost you $50 normally but you get it for just $1 with this service. (Note that during the trial period you cannot request your reports and scores more than once, although you really wouldn't need to in a seven-day period.) CreditCheck Total also gives you seven days of free monitoring of your credit report at all 3 bureaus and alerts you by email of any changes.

Monitoring all three bureaus is critical for both maintaining good credit and protecting against identity theft as often lenders and merchants only report transactions and inquiries to one bureau. Once your free trial ends, you will continue to get unlimited copies of all three credit reports and scores plus 3-bureau credit monitoring for $22.95 per month. While it's not cheap, keep in mind this is very valuable data that you would have to pay over $50 to get every time you wanted it. If you choose to cancel, you pay just $1 and will have received all three credit scores and reports.

We think this is a great service at a good price, considering all the data to which you have access. The only drawback other than the $22.95 price point is that it would be nice if the credit scores were FICO scores, the type of scores most lenders use. But the Experian PLUS scores you get with CreditCheck Total are a very close approximation of your FICO score and almost as good. Another nice extra CreditCheck Total offers is if you are a victim of identity theft or other types of fraud, they will assign you a fraud resolution specialist that will assist you in contacting law enforcement and taking all the necessary actions to protect yourself and your credit. They also offer $25,000 in identity theft insurance to cover your expenses should you fall victim to id theft.

Overall, this is a great service with outstanding benefits but at a premium price. For those wanting frequent access to all their credit scores and reports, CreditCheck Total is a good deal and the best way to go.

ProtectMyID.com Review: Credit Report ServiceGo to Site | Back to Chart

[Editor's Note: ProtectMyID.com is offering NextAdvisor.com customers an exclusive $1 discount, which brings the price to $8.95/month. To get this deal, just click the ProtectMyID.com link on the NextAdvisor.com site. ProtectMyID.com has also set up an exclusive 800 number where NextAdvisor.com visitors can speak to a ProtectMyID.com representative to ask questions and order by phone. If interested, call 866-958-MYID (6943), and make sure you mention the $1 discount.]

ProtectMyID.com is a credit report monitoring and identity theft protection service offered by Experian, one of the three major credit bureaus. This service offers the cheapest 3-bureau credit monitoring available, as well as Internet fraud scanning, identity theft recovery support, and a $1,000,000 product guarantee.

With 3-bureau credit monitoring, ProtectMyID.com will alert you right away if any changes are posted to your Experian, Equifax or TransUnion credit file. You'll have the option of receiving SMS alerts as well as email alerts. When you initially subscribe to ProtectMyID.com, you'll receive a single Experian credit report. This is not enough to give you a complete picture of your credit health and history, and is the main downside to ProtectMyID.com's service. However, ProtectMyID.com members can purchase reports and scores from all three bureaus for a steeply discounted price of $19.95. ProtectMyID.com also offers ChildSecure, a service that will monitor your child's credit files and alert you to any suspicious activity for an additional $6.95 per month. Since children's credit files usually go unchecked until after they turn 18, they are particularly vulnerable to identity theft, which can ruin their credit before they have even begun to establish a genuine credit history.

In addition to monitoring your credit files at all three bureaus, ProtectMyID.com will scan the Internet to ensure that your Social Security number, bank accounts, credit and debit card numbers are not being used without your knowledge. ProtectMyID.com also monitors for address changes. In the event that your credit or debit cards are lost or stolen, ProtectMyID.com will help you cancel them immediately. In order to receive this protection, you must provide ProtectMyID.com with your account numbers once you have subscribed. If a bank or card issuer holds you liable for any fraudulent charges made on any of your cards, ProtectMyID.com will reimburse you. If you do become an identity theft victim while subscribing to ProtectMyID, you'll be covered by a $1,000,000 guarantee, which covers certain expenses including lost wages and legal fees. You'll also have access to a resolution specialist.

ProtectMyID.com is an obvious choice for consumers who are primarily interested in 3-bureau credit monitoring since at the special NextAdvisor.com price of $8.95 per month, it's the cheapest 3-bureau credit report monitoring available. And if identity theft is a concern, ProtectMyID.com's Internet scanning, recovery support, and $1,000,000 product guarantee make this the ideal low-cost solution.

myFICO Review: Credit Report ServiceGo to Site | Back to Chart

myFICO Score Watch's biggest advantage over the competition is in the type of credit score it delivers - the FICO score. The FICO scoring system is the one most lenders use in determining your credit score so in our opinion is the best score to get. However, Score Watch only computes that score based on your Equifax credit report, so your FICO score could be significantly different when based on your Experian or TransUnion report. Nevertheless, your Equifax FICO score is a great piece of data to know as it is an excellent barometer for what type of rates you are likely to get on loans (home, car, etc.) and what type of credit cards you may be able to get approved for.

myFICO Score Watch makes sure you always know your Equifax FICO score by first giving you two free Score Power reports per year. These reports include your latest FICO score, your latest Equifax credit report, 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. Then myFICO will give you your updated FICO score any time there is a change to your credit report so you are ensured of always knowing your most up-to-date score.

Many people are surprised at how often their score can change. Minor-seeming credit report updates such as changes in a credit card account balance can affect your score and myFICO monitors and alerts you to all these types of changes.

myFICO Score Watch is built around monitoring your FICO score but is also one way to guard against identity theft since they monitor your Equifax credit report daily. You'll get an email alert within 24 hours of any change to your report or inquiry into your credit file. Since myFICO is monitoring your report so closely, even for minor changes, they do a great job of alerting you to any change in your Equifax report. Of course, since you get your full Equifax credit report twice per year and are alerted to any change in it, it's also a good way to make sure there are no errors on your Equifax credit report.

However, we believe that to guard against identity theft, you should really be monitoring your credit reports from all 3 bureaus, not just Equifax so myFICO Score Watch is lacking in that department. While Score Watch charges an annual rate of $89.95, that comes out to only $7.95 per month, making it one of the most affordable credit monitoring services while also being one of the better ones.

While we think myFICO Score Watch is a great service, it does not offer everything. Since the FICO score they give you is based only on your Equifax credit report and they only give you an Equifax report, you won't know if there are errors on your Experian or TransUnion reports nor will you know what your scores are based on those reports. And as we previously mentioned, it is not great for guarding against identity theft because it only monitors one bureau. Score Watch does not offer any identity theft insurance, although this insurance is a bit overrated in our opinion as it typically only covers limited expenses incurred in recovering your identity. However, taken as a whole, the combination of the FICO scoring system and the low cost of this service make it a great value and an excellent choice for those most concerned with keeping tabs on their FICO score.

FreeCreditScore.com Review: Credit Report ServiceGo to Site | Back to Chart

A subsidiary of Experian, FreeCreditScore.com is marketed heavily online as well as offline with both television and radio ads (it's the successor to Experian's FreeCreditReport.com). When you sign up for signing up for their free 7-day trial, you get a free Experian credit score. Overall, at $14.95 per month, it's a solid choice for 3-bureau credit report monitoring. ProtectMyId.com is cheaper at just $9.95 per month but does not offer any credit score data while FreeCreditScore.com gives you 2 Experian scores per month. Others give you more varied data (all 3 scores) at the same price but less frequently updated. Still others give you more data that is also updated more frequently updated data but at a higher price. Thus FreeCreditSocre.com's sweet spot is for those people whose main goal is to monitor all 3 credit bureaus and have regular access to one of your credit reports. Of course, you always have the option of canceling before your 7-day free trial is over and getting your credit score without having paid a dime.

Since FreeCreditScore.com constantly monitors all 3 bureaus, you receive an e-mail alert whenever there is a change or inquiry to your credit. Actually the service that does the credit monitoring is called Triple Advantage but it's part of the FreeCreditScore.com deal - don't let this confuse you. They are the same company. 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 some other monitoring services ($50k), although in general we don't think this type of insurance is really that valuable.

In addition to updating your Experian credit score twice per month, FreeCreditScore.com gives you access to their Score Center, which does a nice job tracking your credit score over time as well as educating you on why it changes and how you can improve it. Their score estimator is a useful tool that tells you how your score would change based on different actions you might take such as paying down a credit balance.

The main downside we see to this service is that the credit scores are from Experian only. Although the credit report 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 recommend FreeCreditScore.com for those looking for a combination of 3-bureau credit report monitoring and frequent tracking of their credit score. With a 7 day free trial, a price of $14.95 per month, 2 Experian credit scores per month and a useful credit score estimator tool, this service is a very good value for those in its sweet spot.

True Credit 3-Bureau Review: Credit Report ServiceGo to Site | Back to Chart

TrueCredit 3-Bureau Credit Monitoring is a very good service that gives subscribers access to all three credit scores and reports for $14.95 per month. Its major drawback is that it does not offer a free trial. Subscribers can get updated Experian, Equifax and TransUnion credit scores and credit reports once per month. The credit scores are based on the VantageScore system, which was developed by the three credit bureaus as an alternative to FICO scores. While no company reveals their "secret formula" for calculating credit score, based on our testing we've found that VantageScores can be a bit different than FICO scores. There seems to be certain information that can negatively affect your FICO score but does not seem to impact your VantageScore. This doesn't mean one methodology is better than the other, but since more lender use FICO scores, your VantageScore may not be as close an approximation to what a lender is taking into account as yo might like. VantageScores can also be a bit confusing because they range from 501 to 990, while FICO scores and many other types of credit scores range from 301 to 850, making comparisons a bit difficult. All that being said, TrueCredit does do a nice job of helping you understand your VantageScore. It gives you a letter grade (A,B,C,D or F) and a percentile (0-99%) associated with your score so you can get a clear idea of how your score compares to the average credit score. It also gives you an explanation of the factors that are negatively affecting your score.

TrueCredit 3-Bureau Credit Monitoring also includes the ability to lock and unlock your TransUnion credit file as part of your service. Locking your credit means that no one has access to it for any reason, whether it be checking your credit or opening a new account. It is great protection against identity theft. For those that want to do this, it could be a valuable benefit as depending on the state in which you reside, you would normally have to pay $10 to lock your credit and another $10 to unlock it each time you do it. However, in this case it's only of limited effectiveness because you're only locking your TransUnion credit file, not your Experian or Equifax file. While credit inquiries or new accounts often hit all three credit bureaus, they do not always do it. Thus new accounts could still be opened in your Experian or Equifax file while your TransUnion file is locked. Of course, you would be notified of this through TrueCredit's 3-bureau credit report monitoring, but that would be after it already stopped. TrueCredit also includes $25,000 of identity theft insurance in the service.

For those that want their 3-bureau credit report and scored data that monthly, the TrueCredit service is a great deal since it would cost over $50 to purchase all three scores and report, and you are paying just $14.95 per month. You're also getting 3-bureau credit report monitoring on top of it. Overall, we recommend TrueCredit 3-Bureau Credit Monitoring for anyone looking for the maximum amount of credit data they can get and who also wants to carefully guard against identity theft. At $14.95 per month, we think this service represents a good value for someone who knows they want the service and doesn't need the free trial.

TransUnion Review: Credit Report ServiceGo to Site | Back to Chart

With its free 30-day trial and unlimited TransUnion scores and reports, TransUnion Credit Monitoring is a very good service and value. The main drawback we see is that it only delivers scores and reports from one credit bureau, TransUnion. This limits its effectiveness as we recommend monitoring your reports from all 3 bureaus for both identity theft protection and to make sure there are not errors on one of your other reports. Additionally, we've found the VantageScore system that TransUnion uses to give you your TransUnion score uses some different criteria than the FICO scoring system. Since the FICO scoring system is used by more lenders, this is a drawback. The VantageScore system also uses a different scoring range (501 to 990) than FICO does (301 to 850), making comparison sometimes difficult. TransUnion is very helpful here, though, by giving you both a letter grade for your score and a percentile so you can better understand how your score compares to the average score.

TransUnion Credit Monitoring gives you a clear explanation of the factors affecting your credit score, which is very useful. It also has some nice tools and graphs to see how your credit changes over time. $25,000 worth of identity theft insurance is included with your service.

Overall, TransUnion Credit Monitoring is a good service with one major flaw, its sole focus on your TransUnion report and score without any data from the other bureaus. Still, its 30 day trial lets you check your report and score as many times as you want for free and still cancel if you don't like the service. At only $11.95 per month, it is a cost-effective way to stay on top of your TransUnion report and score as you can continue to check them both as often as you like. As with all the services we recommend, you will be notified by email within 24 hours of any change to your report.