What’s The Best & Cheapest Way To Monitor Your Credit?

I used to have Citi credit monitoring, but haven’t used that for awhile. What’s the best way to monitor my current?

Amol, of Travel Codex Fame (paraphrased)

Most credit cards now come with a free FICO score, so use those for your scoring needs. Most people also want to know about major changes to their credit (e.g when a new hard pull is done and what credit bureau is pulled). There are a lot of different credit monitoring sites, but you only really need to use two of them to cover all bases.

There are also the other free credit monitoring sites: Quizzle (Equifax) , Credit Sesame (TransUnion), Credit.com (Experian) & WisePiggy (TransUnion). If you do any bank account bonuses, I’d also recommend manually pulling your ChexSystems report once annually to make sure you don’t have any flags on your account.

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DP
DP (@guest_997696)
June 13, 2020 20:18

would you still recommend freecreditscore.com over experian?

Gadget - Bank Bonus Geek
Gadget - Bank Bonus Geek (@guest_998753)
June 15, 2020 20:36
  DP

freecreditscore.com is owned by Experian… so you are getting all the same data. The advantage is that you get a FICO score too, with FCS. Last I knew, if you sign up at freecreditreport or plain Experian, you do not get a score without paying for it, and only get access to your report. You can however, inactivate your other account, then sign up for freecreditscore.com and will have the FICO score.

Justanother Dude
Justanother Dude (@guest_1076838)
October 21, 2020 11:05

Thanks for the tip on getting a free score from Experian. Now I just have to figure out how to inactivate my existing experian.com account. I don’t see the option on the website, so I suppose I’ll have to call them.

Gadget - Bank Bonus Geek
Gadget - Bank Bonus Geek (@guest_1077125)
October 21, 2020 18:08

They used to have it somewhere deep in the settings, but I am not seeing it anymore.

They should be able to just switch you to the other program, but may depend on the competency level of the rep. They are probably told to push the paid plans.

Cameron
Cameron (@guest_552008)
January 18, 2018 14:15

I don’t know where to put this but it looks like credit karma does not allow for sorting by credit card open date anymore. This was useful for checking 5/24.

Dan
Dan (@guest_217701)
January 15, 2016 10:36

Here’s a good chart to see who pulls from where, courtesy of the Reddit churning forum:

https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/wiki/index#wiki_fico_score

themanwhocan
themanwhocan (@guest_217562)
January 14, 2016 19:34

As others have mentioned, Credit Sesame is Transunion now, but doesn’t provide good details about your credit report. credit.com does still use Experian, but once again lacks details about the credit report.

You might also mention concierge.comparecards.com which gives good data for Transunion, but updates only monthly.

Jake
Jake (@guest_217483)
January 14, 2016 13:36

I’d like to use one site that covers all, any recommendation on the paid ones?
Is Costo’s CSID a good choice?

Fiby
Fiby (@guest_217453)
January 14, 2016 11:47

Or get your ID details stolen and get free credit monitoring as a result 😉

Nic
Nic (@guest_217452)
January 14, 2016 11:45

Speaking of citi credit monitoring- whatever happened to that CFPB fine/refund that was supposed to happen?

David
David (@guest_217427)
January 14, 2016 10:37

are credit karma and sesame free?

SimonZX
SimonZX (@guest_217439)
January 14, 2016 11:18

yes

Corey
Corey (@guest_217420)
January 14, 2016 10:16

Credit Sesame actually uses TransUnion now. It’s at the bottom of every page when you’re logged in, “Your credit score, and all credit and loan info are provided by TransUnion.”

MrDioji
MrDioji (@guest_217537)
January 14, 2016 17:28

Yes, Credit Sesame became useless to me a while ago when they switched to Transunion. I bit the bullet and pay $8.99 for 3 bureau monitoring through Costco.

TomT
TomT (@guest_804020)
August 28, 2019 12:24

Why? You can use experian.com for your Experian report and creditkarma.com for Equifax & Trans Union. BOth also have phone apps. Both are free and provide alerts when inquiries are detected. No need to pay for credit report monitoring.

rubixx
rubixx (@guest_217419)
January 14, 2016 10:14

Was going to use your affiliate link for CS but it seems to be broken when I tried to sign up.

rubixx
rubixx (@guest_217421)
January 14, 2016 10:18

Also, I just signed up for CS and it says all info is provided by TransUnion. Is there any way to see Experian as well?