They Use" Fake" Credit Scores

Category: Finance, Credit.

"Hello, this is the fraud department of American Express, is Stephen Snyder available? " That s what my assistant Brenda heard when she answered the phone recently. The gentleman asked if I recently purchased anything from Sony Electronics and shipped it to New Jersey.

I quickly called back. New Jersey? So I told him, "No. " At that moment I realized that I had become a victim of identity theft. I don t own property in New Jersey. American Express immediately closed the account and issued me a new card that I received the next morning. Whew.

The person I spoke to at American Express told me it seemed like an isolated incident since my other accounts with them were not compromised. but recommended I carefully review my next account statement for any suspicious charges. That was resolved. But many people aren t so lucky. I was lucky. The average amount of time it takes for someone to clear his or her name and credit reports of ID theft is three months. at an average cost of$ 1, 20 I ll never forget the first time I became a victim of identity theft. Someone from our Columbus seminar had stolen my identity and bought 11 Nextel cellular phones with my credit card and had them shipped to a different state. (What do you do with 11 cell phones? ) OK, during the seminar you can see my Social Security number and home address on the overhead transparencies when I show what my credit reports looked like after I filed bankruptcy.

I had just presented the Credit After Bankruptcy seminar to 987 people in Columbus, Ohio( nice people there- well, except for one of them. ) You see. several weeks later I received a telephone call from Nextel. Shame on me. But to me it was a risk worth taking. My wife, has nagged me, Michele about this for years. All I know is, when I go to a seminar and look at overheads with a lot of information blacked out, I m immediately suspicious. But, she was right, as usual.

So I don t do it. Had Nextel not called, I would never have known my credit reports were accessed without my permission. To be honest with you, I had no idea. So what is the best way to monitor activity on your three credit reports? So I started to explore. After several weeks of research I didn t find a service that made sense.

I wanted a service that would put me 100% in control of all 3 of my credit reports and would alert me whenever there was a change on them. The problem with 99% of the credit report monitoring services has been they don t monitor all 3 national credit reporting agencies at the same time. Or, you could subscribe to Experian s credit report monitoring service- but it monitors only your Experian� credit report. So you could subscribe to TransUnion s credit report monitoring service- but it monitors your TransUnion credit report. You get the idea. Exactly.

But what if the thief uses a lender that accesses a credit report that you aren t monitoring? It just doesn t make sense. unless you re monitoring ALL THREE of your credit reports you re paying for a false sense of security. I guess you could purchase each individual credit reporting agency s credit report monitoring service. but it would be expensive and cumbersome to manage three separate accounts( you d have to remember a bunch of user names and passwords and access three different websites. way too much work. ) So after this last identity theft episode I decided to use my contacts and influence. Monitoring only one of your credit reports is like putting locks on the front and back doors of your home, but leaving the side door wide open, allowing anyone to just come right in and rob you blind! I asked a colleague of mine who has worked for both Fair Isaac Corporation( the creators of the FICO� credit score) and Equifax( one of the three national credit reporting agencies) what service he would recommend. I needed to know every time there was a credit inquiry made.

I was very clear about what I expected in a credit report monitoring service: I wanted to know when any new accounts were opened in my name. I wanted to know if/ when my home address changed. I needed all these things in one service that monitored all three of my credit reports. I needed to know when any changes were made to any credit accounts. And the most important part. A pretty tall order. I needed to be able to receive any alerts via email or text messaging on my cell phone.

My colleague told me that there was only one service that fit the bill. In fact, not one person who approached me at the Credit After Bankruptcy seminar in the last 10 years has ever mentioned them. I had never heard of the company he recommended. And I must admit, I was a little skeptical. I highly recommend you get this service, too. But on his recommendation I decided to give the service a test drive in July 200 To sum up my experience- I love it! Now before I tell you the name of the service and how to sign up for it- there s another use for this service that I think you ll enjoy if you have kids( and I guarantee the company who created this service didn t think of this benefit) .

I think this is critically important because I m astounded how many college students file bankruptcy due to taking on too much credit they cannot afford. You can monitor the credit usage of your teenagers or college students. Between student loans and buying a few necessities during their college years, many college students are earning a degree in bankruptcy! I think so. Would it make a difference if they knew mommy and daddy would be monitoring their use of credit? Now the bad news.

It has flaws. The credit report monitoring service I m going to recommend to you isn t perfect. The biggest one: they advertise that you ll receive your credit scores as part of their service. They re not your real FICO credit scores. Don t believe it. They use" fake" credit scores.

I was disappointed. Yuck. My first reaction was, "You ve got to be kidding. " But it s okay. You re using this service to monitor and protect your credit reports. Remember, you re not using this service to monitor your credit scores. But there is one more not- so- obvious benefit to subscribing to this service.

I ve been known to purchase my scores every 60 days( do the math$ 485 x 6= $2610 each year) . You can stop guessing when you should purchase your FICO credit scores again to see if they have increased. I don t need to do that anymore. If you re working on increasing your FICO credit scores this service will REALLY help you monitor your results and save you money. I will now purchase my FICO scores only when I see activity that I feel will significantly change my scores and/ or I m getting ready to make a large purchase( e. g. , a new car or new investment property) . The name of the service is Identity Guard Fraud Alert.

TheBestCreditReportMonitoringService. com. To sign up, you must go to: www. After you click on the link, it will take you to a page that summarizes all of the benefits of this service. If you want to protect your credit and want to know when your scores are going up( without actually buying them) , then this is a no- brainer. Then you can click from there to be redirected to their official site.

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