Nowadays, there are basically two types of news articles circulating the internet when it comes to identity theft monitoring/protection services. Those that support them and those that do not. This might make it very challenging for someone who is trying to determine whether it will be worth signing up for these services to protect their name. Many articles that do not support identity theft have mentioned that you should not pay for something that you can do as a consumer for free. While this might be the case, have you placed your free fraud alerts with the credit bureaus yet or have you ever done this in the past? This might be a key question to ask yourself in determining whether you want to have a monitoring service, however, when determining if you want credit protection, you will want to put more time and effort into your decision.

Credit monitoring is what credit bureaus will do for you for free, when (and if) you contact them. This is not an automatic service. Also, if a problem arises where someone else uses your identity to open a new line of credit, the credit bureaus will not just wipe that off of the credit report for you. You will be aware of a new account that you will need to begin working to close and report as a fraud.

Credit protection is more involved. This service will alert the consumer whenever credit is applied for so that it can be stopped from taking place. This is not a service provided by those offering just monitoring. This makes it much easier to prevent unauthorized new accounts from being opened. Depending on the service you choose, you might also receive assistance in fighting any fraudulent activity or reimbursement for expenses associated with clearing your name.

Please closely consider your options before deciding on which direction you choose to go. By not choosing at all, you leave yourself wide open to various problems.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 26th, 2008 at 11:50 am and is filed under Articles Concerning Identity Theft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.