What are Credit Monitoring Services?

Some issues a credit monitoring service might flag include:

• New credit accounts appearing on your credit report
• Incorrect personal information or changes to your personal information, including your name and previous addresses
• Hard credit inquiries
• Credit utilization ratio
• Updates to your credit score

You might receive a fraud alert if anything appears questionable in your credit file.

Things credit monitoring services don’t do

Credit monitoring doesn’t prevent security issues, it identifies them. Instead, they focus on changes to your credit report, including open credit accounts and loans.

While they can alert you of changes that may be a sign of credit card fraud, they don’t necessarily provide the same degree of security against other forms of ID theft or fraud. Because they don’t track your bank account, they can’t detect unauthorized use of your debit card, for example. If a leak outside of the scope of credit compromises your personal information, they may not identify it.

Credit monitoring services don’t typically take automatic action to protect your account following an issue. You’ll need to check your terms for what they provide. Suspicious activity may not trigger an automatic credit freeze. Instead, when you receive an alert you’ll need to follow up with your credit card provider. 

How much do credit monitoring services cost?

Some companies provide basic credit monitoring for no cost. These might be basic services such as credit score updates and alerts about suspicious activities.

But free credit monitoring services may have some limitations. Free services may only monitor one or two credit reports, while a paid service may access all three credit bureaus. Paid services may include more intensive identity theft protection tools.

Credit monitoring vs. identity theft protection

Credit monitoring and identity theft protection are alike in many ways but they aren’t the same. Identity theft protection products are more robust. Some added services that identity theft companies offer might include:

• Dark web monitoring. Whether your data is up for sale on difficult-to-access parts of the internet where illicit activity might occur.
• Social Security number monitoring. Receive an alert if your Social Security number is connected with any new names or addresses.
• Identity theft assistance and insurance. Investigate your stolen identity case, help restore your identity, or help you cover any costs.

The bottom line

Credit monitoring services help you keep an eye on your credit and may help you identify security issues quickly. While you may have access to free credit monitoring, for more expansive security, you might consider purchasing an identity theft protection product.