Imagine you going through a lot of pain to maintain that
perfect credit score. You make all your payments on time, no defaults and there
is no chance of you being in bad books of credit. All of a sudden you encounter
an emergency and decide on applying for a personal loan. When applied for the same, you are rest assured that
your loan will be sanctioned within no time; all of a sudden you receive a bad
news stating your loan has been rejected! Now you are in a confused state on
how this happened and how is it possible on the first place, because you used
to make all your payments on time.
After a brief inquiry, you happen to know that you are a
victim of identity theft and your information is used for making various
financial purchases. Your banker understands the same and suggests you opt for
a credit monitoring plan. But what is a credit monitoring plan? Is that
necessary for me? How is it going to be beneficial for me? If you have been a
victim of identity theft, the answers to such questions are mentioned below:
Credit Monitoring
Let us first understand what is credit monitoring. A credit
monitoring service is offered by various third party companies who can keep a
track on your credit related transactions and maintain your credit score for
future transactions. Customers usually use this service to guard them from
identity theft and also to improve cibil score.A credit monitoring service
keeps a close eye on your credit activity and notifies you of any credit
transactions happening towards your account. The transactions can include any
hard inquiry, purchase of a new loan, etc. Some monitoring services also give
you a comprehensive tracking of the cibil scores.
Credit monitoring service has its pros and cons, before you
enroll yourself for this service, make it a point if you really need this
service. Here are the five points you should know before you go for a
credit monitoring service:
1. It’s not free forever!
When you plan to opt for this service, you will have a lot
of companies offering you free service for a couple of months, do not fall for
that! We have this tendency of opting for a service and then forgetting about
it, the service provider can charge you until you do not stop the subscription.
2. No service is perfect
You may enter into an agreement that the service provider
will give you the best of the service, you can be wrong. Some service provider
may not handle your queries well and would not be up to the mark. Before
considering a service provider, you can check some online reviews on them and
then think if they are worth subscribing.
3. Protection of privacy is important
This service may require sharing your data to third party
companies from time to time for resolving any mishaps towards your account.
Sometimes the service providers may also sell your personal data. Do read the
service contract before signing the terms.
4. Good things are for free
You do know, you can opt for a free credit score once a year
just to evaluate your credit report. Take full advantage of the same and check
your report yourself because credit monitoring may cost you a lot of money.
5. Always be on a safer side
Choose difficult passwords for your account. Check your
accounts regularly. Look for any fraudulent activity towards your account and
if you find one, immediately report to the authorities.
Credit Monitoring can be useful if you have taken a severe
hit financially due to identity theft. As we always read, “it’s better to be
safe than sorry”. Check your accounts regularly or you may take a hit not only
on your financial end but also on your mental health.
No comments:
Post a Comment