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Equifax w/Score Power Review: Credit Report Monitoring |
| Sign up for Equifax w/Score Power | |
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| Free FICO score plus excellent 3-bureau monitoring; free 30-day trial | |
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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. Sign up for Equifax w/Score Power | Compare to Other Credit Report Monitoring |
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| Free Credit Scores: | Free FICO score |
| Trial Period & Price: | Free 30-day trial; $14.95/mo |
| Credit Reports Monitored: | All 3 bureaus' reports |
| ID Theft Insurance/ Guarantee: | $1,000,000 |
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