Credit score plays a very important role in our daily life and becomes more important than ever. If you are a student, your credit score is related closely to your student loans. If you are a small business owner, your credit score matters a lot to your business. So it is important to have a good credit report and a healthy credit score. In order to ensure the safety of your credit card and avoid things like someone using your credit card information dishonestly, you need monitoring services. Credit monitoring and identity monitoring (or identity protection) are the two types of monitoring services.
Difference Between Credit Monitoring and Identity Monitoring
Although both credit monitoring and identity monitoring can help you to protect your personal information, they are different things. Credit monitoring is mainly used to monitor your credit scores and credit reports. For example, a credit monitoring service will send you an alert when your credit score or credit report has any changes. For instance, your credit record was checking by some company. Your identity was used to apply for a new loan. Some changes happened to your personal information.
Identity monitoring will provide more services than credit monitoring. Identity monitoring not only tells you what changes are happening to your credit card but also what the suspicious activity is. With identity theft protection service, your risk of having your identity stolen will greatly reduce.
Which kind of monitoring services should one choose depends on the individual’s situation. Below are some trusted companies and services for credit and identity monitoring.
IDShield
IDShield is a branch of LegalShield established in 2001. It is a trusted and well-known company in America. IDShield provides identity theft protection for both individuals and businesses of all sizes. There’s no free trial for IDShield identity monitoring service, but it aims to make everyone get identity theft protection service at an affordable price. IDShield offers an Individual 1 Credit Bureau Monitoring plan for only $12.95 per month and an Individual 3 Credit Bureau Monitoring plan for $15.95 per month. If there is any suspicious activity related to your identity information, you will get a report immediately. IDShield also provides family plans. Its Family 1 Credit Bureau Monitoring service costs $25.95 a month and its Family 3 Credit Bureau Monitoring plan costs $29.95 a month. You can easily keep you and your family’s information safe with IDShield’s family Credit Bureau Monitoring service.
Identity Guard
Identity Guard is one of the well-known data protection companies in America. Identity Guard offers a free trial for a month and has a good reputation among its customers. Identity Guard is better than other companies for its IBM Watson protection. Identity Guard offers six plans for their identity protection service to fit the needs of their customers. There are three family plans and three individual plans. All the plans vary in terms of pricing and features to satisfy different customers. They also have 1 million insurance policy for the new user. Identity Guard also provides for businesses. You can receive alerts from a mobile app of Identity Guard when any usual activity happens. They can even tell you if suspicious activities happen to the institution you do business with. Identity Guard provides great credit monitoring system and offers credit scores.
LifeLock
LifeLock is one of the leaders in providing individual and business identity theft protection services. LifeLock offers three types of protection plans: the Standard Plan for $9.99 a month in the first year, Advantage Plan for $19.99 a month in the first year, and Ultimate Plus Plan for $29.99 a month in the first year. There is a discount of up to 16% if you pay the fee in advance for a whole year. You can receive great credit protection service from LifeLock with a very low price in the first year. The disadvantage is that their price will change the next year if you want to continue the service. LifeLock will send you an alert by phone, text, or the LifeLock app when your credit card, financial account, or personal information have any changes or suspicious activities.
Featured image: DepositPhotos – AndreyPopov
