Equifax is one of the three credit reporting agencies in America that investigates consumer credit histories. The other two are Experian and TransUnion By Charles and Cynthia McGinness published: on February 16, 2009 Both Experian and TransUnion are two of the three largest credit reporting agencies that collect consumer information for marketing and other purposes. Equifax gathers reports of consumers, with a focus on their credit histories, such as of loan repayments, credit card balances, bankruptcies, late payments, foreclosures, and other aspects. This information is summarized into a credit report that may be used in determining the ability of an individual to secure credit and be offered credit. Okay then, what is the price of the Equifax credit report and Equifax credit monitoring in particular?
Free Annual Credit Reports – How to Obtain Your Copies?
Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, a customer's legal entitlement is one free credit report of the consumer from the three main agencies namely Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion within one year after the prior request. You may get your free reports at www.annualcreditreport.com by contacting three key credit reporting companies. As stated previously, this is the only website legally permitted to provide your free yearly credit reports as specified by law.
You must provide simple personal information like your full name, current address, social security number, and date of birth for identification reasons to get your results. You might also have to respond to certain security questions. The instant you click the option to request or view your reports should make them downloadable. Upon customer request, the three credit bureaus are allowed to provide the consumers with their free reports within 15 days.
Once you register with Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, the credit reports you are given lack the credit score. However, they also contain details from your credit file with every agency about your loan repayment history, ongoing debt, credit queries, collection processes, and public records where, should bankruptcy or foreclosures exist. Reviewing your reports helps you to find process fraudulence or errors.
Equifax Credit Monitoring Packages
However, as for the rest of the year, you might be interested in Equifax’s credit monitoring services and get a monthly subscription. These can be used to obtain a copy of your latest Equifax credit report and credit score at any given time. Equifax credit monitoring plans are available at $9. 95 per month, $19. 95 per month, and $24. 95 per month with the differences in included options.
Some key differences between the plans are highlighted below:
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Equifax Conejo Credit Report Card (free)
- A new updated credit report from Equifax every month
- Monitor changes in your Equifax credit score with monthly updates.
- Forwarding the key changes on your Equifax credit file through email
- Equifax 1-Bureau credit report; Equifax 1-Bureau credit report and score
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Equifax CompleteTM Premier Plan: the cost of the service is twenty-four point ninety-five US dollars per month.
- Being able to get a fresh report on your credit every day from Equifax
- To get daily updates of your credit score provided by Equifax
- Equifax credit report sent through mail and received by anyone
- Checks and notifications regarding any unwanted activity involving your accounts or identity.
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Equifax CompleteTM Advantage Plan and it costs $9. 95 per month, basic monitoring service.
- To help you better manage your credit, here is your Equifax credit report information:
- As for the content, it is necessary to receive daily updates on your Equifax credit score
- Accounting and alerts of all the activities that may seem fishy about identity, credit, and bank accounts
Equifax offers maximum monitoring and reporting through the Complete Premier plan of monitoring. Still, Complete Advantage is the most basic package that includes necessary elements for only $9. 95 a month: daily credit report and score. In conclusion, it is easier to say what a less stringent approach is better than, rather than identifying the most favorable plan; the decision-making should be based on your budget and how closely you want to monitor your credit. Consumers who have suffered from identity theft or have significant credit problems may find that the features offered under the Premier package are more suitable.
The next section of the Equifax site page will specifically detail what is not included in Equifax’s monthly plans.
This means that even when you subscribe to this service to receive alerts on your Equifax credit activity, you are only getting information on activities conducted within Equifax. In this case, it does not contain your credit reports or scores from Experian or TransUnion. To have your full credit checked across all three credit bureaus, you would have to incur additional charges and access credit tracking services from both Experian and TransUnion.
Remember also that INFO Equifax plans every month to scrutinize only the data contained in the Equifax credit file on you. They do not protect the identity from being stolen or ensure one will be approved for credit. However, you still have to safe on the usage of credit card and personal identity. Although credit monitoring can notify you of potential scams, it is not enough to protect you against an individual’s misuse of your identity.
How to Obtain Your FREE Equifax Report and Scores?
Other than through equifax.com directly, there are a few other ways you can obtain your Equifax credit report and scores for free or at a discount:
- When you are considering purchasing a car, applying for a loan, or any other credit with an organization, you are eligible to ask the lender to share the Equifax credit report which he or she used in making the decision. However, by law, they are required to do that if you were rejected credit or given a higher interest rate than you deserve or any unfavorable loan terms.
- A few credit cards and bank accounts give you free access to this Equifax credit score as the cardholder. In this context, Citibank Credit Card and Discover Card are some of the cards that can be considered.
- Similarly, other websites such as Credit Karma and NerdWallet offer to check Equifax credit reports as well as the credit score for free in return for receiving income and selected financial accounts. However, the scores they indicate are not always the real scoring models employed by the various lenders.
Despite this Equifax does initially claim that to get full access to your daily credit reports and scores on its site it charges for this service yet in many instances the consumer does have the ability to obtain the above information free of charge. Both are effective in ensuring that strict credit monitoring is conducted, all this at a lower cost as compared to other methods.
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