Alternatives to Credit Secure

Credit Secure and other credit monitoring services are becoming popular due to the large amount of identity theft. Identity theft is considered to be one of the fastest-growing crimes in the country. Identity theft happens when someone gets a hold of detailed personal information, uses it to pretend to be you and gets credit in your name. The credit is then used to purchase things without payment, leaving you holding the bag.

What Is Credit Secure?

Credit Secure is a credit monitoring service offered by American Express. It gives you daily updated access to your credit report from all three major credit reporting agencies--Equifax, Experian, TransUnion. In addition to this, they offer credit alerts when things change, lost wallet service and credit fraud insurance. They offer these services for a monthly fee to anyone who signs up, not just American Express customers.

Alternatives

There are many alternatives to Credit Secure. Each one has its own considerations and emphasis but they all basically monitor your credit. Three of the big alternatives are MyFico Score Watch, Lifelock and Identity Guard.

Lifelock is a little different because its main goal is to prevent fraud from happening not just monitoring your credit report. Lifelock keeps an eye on your report and alerts you when changes are made and searches to see if your information is being sold illegally. They also offer a lost wallet service. Lifelock will help you order your free yearly credit report but does not give you continual access to your report. Lifelock is known for its $1 million protection guarantee.

Identity Guard offers credit monitoring with the ability to see daily credit reports. They also include a lost wallet service to help you replace the content of your wallet, sans cash and pictures. They offer money advances in case you need money. Other wallet services only help you get your documents again. Identity Guard gives you access to a credit scoring system but not the FICO system that most creditors use.

MyFico Score Watch offers up-to-date credit monitoring and emails you within 24 hours of any change to your credit. It does not offer lost wallet protection or credit fraud insurance. The system gives you up-to-date information on your FICO credit score and any changes to it but only basis that score on one credit agency, Experian.