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Equifax Credit Watch Gold Review: Identity Theft Protection |
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| Great combination of credit monitoring and ID theft detection; free 30-day trial | |
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Equifax Credit Watch Gold 3-in-1 Monitoring Plus Score Power is another great identity theft protection service. Designed primarily as a service to monitor your credit reports and scores (it is our top rated service in our credit monitoring reviews), it also works very well in detecting identity theft. As a special promotion for our 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 three 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. 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 $40.00 for if you bought it separately. Canceling would defeat the purpose, though, since what is going to detect identity theft is their excellent 3-bureau monitoring service. 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 three bureaus and sends you an email alert within 24 hours of a change to any one of your three 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. If you're looking for an identity theft detection service and also want to keep tabs on your credit reports and scores, Equifax Credit Watch Gold 3-in-1 Monitoring Plus Score Power is a great solution. |
Search our blog archives and frequently asked questions for more information about Identity Theft Protection Services
| Price: | Free 30-day trial; $14.95/mo |
| Fraud Monitoring: | None |
| ID Theft Insurance/ Guarantee: | $1,000,000 |
| Reports Delivered: | 3-bureau credit report and Equifax FICO score |
| Computer Security: | None |
NextAdvisor Identity Theft Protection Blog Headlines
How to get a new Social Security Card
The following post in our Reader Question series is an actual user submitted question:
Q: How do I get another social security card?
A: If you have lost your social security card and need another one, you can get a free replacement. The social security office limits the number of replacement cards they will issue [...]
419 scams double, over $9 billion in profits
Robert Siciliano is a NextAdvisor.com Expert Guest Blogger
A recent study by Dutch investigation firm Ultrascan shows we are half as smart (or twice as dumb) as we were in 2008, as advanced fee scams, a.k.a. 419 scams, doubled in losses to over $9 billion. 419 Advance Fee Fraud Statistics 2009 (PDF)
It is believed that while [...]
Criminal hackers buying and selling hacked accounts
Robert Siciliano is a NextAdvisor.com Expert Guest Blogger.
Malicious software, designed to gather usernames and passwords, has been a boon to the criminal hacking community. Spyware, as it?s commonly known, records almost everything a user does on their PC. The most damaging spyware records all electronic communications via a web browser. That?s where the most damage [...]
Baby boomers guilty of oversharing on Facebook
A new study from Experian concludes that adults over the age of 45 share too much information online. The credit score reporting company completed a study of 1,052 men and women, analyzing their behavior on social networks. The study found that "14 percent of adults – and 20 percent of those age 60 and over [...]
What protection is available once your identity has been stolen?
The following post in our Reader Question series is an actual user submitted question:
Q: I would like to get information on what protection is available for a person who identity is already stolen and is being attempted to be used. I was wondering about instant alerts any time my name or credit is trying to [...]
The New York Times ponders the plight of the Internet user
In this day and age, even the Fashion & Style section of The New York Times is worried about Internet security issues. This weekend, the Times recounted the experiences of Allan Goldstein, a 60 year old college professor who uses the Internet, but does so a bit nervously. He worries that NYU's online system will [...]
Connecticut sues Health Net for data breach
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has filed a lawsuit against Health Net for HIPPA violations in the wake of a data breach. Last May, Health Net discovered that a portable disk drive containing confidential health information, Social Security numbers, and bank account numbers of nearly half a million past and present enrollees had disappeared. The [...]
Chinese hackers target Google and Google users
Yesterday, Google released information about a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack on [Google's] corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google." The attack also targeted at least twenty other large companies, and the hackers seem to have been specifically interested in accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human [...]
Data Breach Alert: Facebook application developer RockYou failed to protect data
RockYou is a company that develops applications for Facebook, MySpace, and a number of other popular social networking websites. It's the second biggest application developer for Facebook after Zynga, which recently made headlines for its "scammy" offers. Last month, RockYou fell victim to an SQL injection attack, in which a hacker or hackers successfully accessed [...]
International hacker pleads guilty
In August, Albert Gonzalez was indicted for his role as ringleader of a massive hacking operation targeting Heartland Payment Systems, 7-11, and supermarket chain Hannaford Brothers. The hack resulted in the theft of data for more than 130 million credit and debit cards. Authorities have called it the largest identity fraud scam in U.S. history.
Gonzalez [...]
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