Peggy asked:
A few family members have been victims of identity theft and they keep telling me to check my credit report constantly to make sure nothing looks fishy. Should I check it once a week? Once a month? I mean, how often can everything on report change? Or is it as quick as over night?
Dawn
A few family members have been victims of identity theft and they keep telling me to check my credit report constantly to make sure nothing looks fishy. Should I check it once a week? Once a month? I mean, how often can everything on report change? Or is it as quick as over night?
Dawn
Elizabeth
First of all, you need to buy your entire family paper shredders for christmas. Identity theft is not that bad.
I check my report once a year. If something happens not to be mine, I would not have to pay a penny of it.
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Todd
I check it for free at a different bureau once every 4 months. That’s my one free one per year per bureau.
Evelyn
I get a quarterly report and e-mail alerts when something changes. This is through a credit monitoring service offered by Discover Card.
I also agree with the shredders. We shred pretty much everything when we are done with it.
Rafael
Checking your reports once a week won’t do any good. They probably won’t be updated between Week 1 and Week 2 sometimes. I mean, although someone can find your information and use it within 24 hours, creditors report to the credit bureaus once a month. There are some sites that have monthly monitoring, but that can get costly or will only apply to one credit bureau.
A good system many people do is to get a free credit report from bureau every 3 months.
Besides that, shred some items and keep other records out of sight from other people.
You just have to be vigilant.
EDIT:
Another way to watch your accounts, but without having to see credit reports, is to view them online. Your checking account is updated in real-time with nearly every purchase. And once a merchant has posted a payment using a credit card, you should see that transaction on your card accounts online.
Juan
The more you check your credit the sooner you can see something out of the ordinary. By law you are able to obtain one free credit report from each of the three repositories every 12 months. I have idenity theft protection. Part of the protection includes credit monitoring. I have unlimited acces to my credit report and credit score. I pay $9.95 a month. The name of the company is SOLUS.