CreditReport.com Review — Credit Reporting & Repair Comparison (2012)

CreditReport.com will get your credit report and score and also monitor your credit report for any suspicious activity. Monitoring your own credit report constantly for any signs of fraud can be a time consuming and frustrating task. CreditReport.com does all of this for you.

Monitoring your credit report and credit score is also important if you are trying to build or rebuild your credit rating. Knowing how each move you make affects your credit report is a good way to know if what you are doing is actually helping or hurting your credit rating and score.  As a member of CreditReport.com, you will receive the following benefits:

• Bi-monthly credit score monitoring with alerts by email if it changes significantly.
• Monitors your credit report daily with email alerts if something has changed or looks suspicious.
• Fraud resolution support
• $50,000 Product Guarantee (Not valid in the state of New York).
• ChildSecure will monitor your children’s social security and alert you if someone tries to open an account in your child’s name.
• CardSafe will reimburse you for monetary losses and notify all companies where you have credit cards.
• The 3-in-1 credit report service monitors your credit report from all three of the major credit reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax and Trans Union). This is a one time fee in addition to the monthly fee.

A growing area of fraud is the identity theft of children, since every child now has a social security number. Identity thieves also know this, and believe no one will be looking up a child’s credit report until they are 18 years old.

CreditReport.com has a service called ChildSecure that will monitor your children’s names and alert you if someone tries use your child’s social security number to open accounts. ChildSecure is available to all CreditReport.com members at no extra charge.

CardSafe is an important service that will register all of your credit, ATM, debit and charge cards. If your cards should ever be stolen or lost, their CardSafe service guarantees reimbursement for all unauthorized charges made after you have reported your missing cards to them. CreditReport.com will also notify everyone to cancel your cards and order new ones for you.

The 3-in-1 credit report service is important since not all companies report to all three credit reporting agencies. And there can be errors on one credit report and not another one. CreditReport.com advises to use this every three months. There is a one time fee, which they do not state on their web site.

CreditReport.com has a nice blog where you can ask their credit experts questions and they will answer or refer you to the right answers.

The credit score that you get from CreditReport.com is the PLUS score calculation from Experian. Unless you also pay the one time fee for the 3 Bureau Monitoring service, CreditReport.com only monitors your credit report from Experian while several other companies monitor all three credit reporting agencies without an extra fee.

These credit monitoring companies including CreditReport.com cannot investigate disputes, for that you have to go the individual credit reporting agency where the wrong information is listed. CreditReport.com does not give advice about your credit. They do have a lot of educational articles and newsletters that will help you learn about credit.

Identity Guard has four different packages to monitor your credit and identity. The following is the Total Protection package and offers the most protection.

• $1 million identity theft insurance
• Internet surveillance will alert you if your credit card or social security number has been used on the internet.
• Monitors all three credit reporting agencies
• Monitors your credit reports and alerts you to any major changes like a new mortgage suddenly showing up.
• Public record monitor will alert you if your name shows up in a public record.

TrustedID monitors your credit reports from all three credit reporting agencies and watches for any signs of identity theft. Their IDEssentials package provides the following:

• 3- Credit reporting agencies monitoring, credit reports and your credit scores
• Identity theft threat score
• Identity scanning
• Medical benefits protection
• $1 million warranty protection
• IDEssentials plan for individuals or a plan for the whole family

CreditReport.com offers a free 7 day trial where you can get your credit report and credit score. If you do not cancel within those 7 days, your credit card will be charged the $19.95 per month until you cancel your membership.

• CreditReport.com basic membership cost $19.95 per month. This cost is for one person only.
• CardSafe costs an extra $19.95 per year.
• Three-Bureau Monitoring is a one time fee which I could not get a price for.
• ChildSecure is free with your membership

Identity Guard has the following fees for their four  different packages:

• Basic Protect is $8.99 per month
• Watchful Eye is $12.99 per month
• Extra Caution cost $16.99 per month
• Total Protection cost $19.99 per month which is the recommended service.

TrustedID has an individual plan or a family plan. They also have a 14-day free trial.

• The one-year plan individual plan costs $125 per year or a monthly plan at $14.99 per month with a three month minimum.
• The family plan costs $240 per year or a monthly plan for $27.99 per month with a three month minimum.

Most of the negative comments concerning CreditReport.com were from people who didn’t read the small print. With the 7-day free trial, you get your credit report and score, if you do not cancel within those first 7 days, the $19.95 is then deducted from your debit or credit card monthly until you do cancel. People didn’t seem to understand this, yet it is clearly stated on their web page.

Others found the ads deceptive by stating you are entitled to a free credit report once a year. This is true, by law you are entitled to a free credit report from all three of the credit reporting agencies once a year. You need to go to annualcreditreport.com for these free annual credit reports.

All in all, most found that CreditReport.com did an adequate job of watching their credit reports and alerting them to any potential identity theft problems. The ChildSecure is a great service for those with children.