Fraud Alerts, Monitoring, and Freezes (oh my!)
Several people have asked me to explain the differences in credit monitoring, fraud alerts, and credit freezes, and which is best. So I am spending some time in this blog entry going over these deterrents to financial identity theft. Remember, though, that financial identity theft is only one type of ID theft, representing about 25% of the reported crimes! The other types (driver's license, social security number, medical, and criminal/character) are growing in frequency and are much harder to detect and correct on your own. Beware: watching only your financial situation can give you a false sense of security. Credit Monitoring Credit monitoring in its strictest definition is simply monitoring your credit regularly at one or more of the three major credit bureaus Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union. On your own, you are limited to requesting credit reports from these bureaus. You are entitled to one free report from each of the bureaus annually (which you can request t