Paying for credit monitoring services is unnecessary and a waste of your hard earned money. So the service tells you when your identity has been compromised. Then what? By that time it’s too late. Read on to see what you really need.........
You can’t prevent identity theft from happening! Plans that make this promise are taking advantage of all the hype and fear surrounding identity theft. In addition, these plans only look out for financial fraud as that is all you see on a credit report. What about medical fraud, social security fraud, criminal activity, tax fraud, etc.?
Nowadays, your banks and credit card companies generally notify you of suspicious activity anyway. You don’t need to pay separately for this service. Plus, you can request a free credit report each year from www.AnnualCreditReport.com. This site allows a free report each year for each of the three reporting bureaus (Transunion, Experian, and Equifax). So you can actually monitor your own report every four months by alternating your free reports between each of the three bureaus.
What you really need is a plan that will take care of the restoration process. It has been estimated that 600 hours is the average amount of time spent on recovering from an ID theft occurrence. Not many people have, or want to spend that kind of time dealing with this process. This is why you need ID Theft Protection instead of credit report monitoring. I use Zander Insurance** for this service as they take over all the work to restore your identity and cover ALL events related to ID Theft. Their plan even covers stolen funds from your bank accounts. In addition, the cost for this plan is less than most credit monitoring services!
**I have no affiliation with Zander Insurance other than being a client of theirs and recommending their services. I do not receive any affiliate commissions for recommending their products.
What are your thoughts on credit monitoring? Have you ever thought about ID Theft Protection instead?