in-the-wallet
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse Advises Consumers on Monitoring Services
With the growing number of products on the marketplace to “monitor” your identity, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has put together some good Q&As to help consumers decide the best strategy to choose for themselves.
Some points that bear repeating
- Credit monitoring can alert you to new accounts being opened in your name, but not for new charges placed on an existing account.
- If you’re very concerned about new accounts being opened in your name and do not plan to open any new lines of credit in the near future, then a security freeze is a much more secure way to prevent new fraudulent accounts from being opened in your name.
- A fraud alert does not freeze your credit but can be done for free by the consumer to provide a bit of extra protection.
- Look at service offerings to see if assistance services are included in the product. Remember, monitoring services tell you what is happening, but if assistance services are not included, YOU will have to do the job of repairing your identity yourself. It’s can be a complicated and frustrating job (believe us, we’ve got some experience in that!)

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