Which Monitoring Service Do you Recommend?

[Wovenyarn]

I'm in the process of rebuilding my credit so I guard it very closely.  I love having the alerts whenever something hits my credit report.  I've had USAA for a few years which is $12.95/month but if you call and threaten to cancel, they will reduce to $6.95 for 6 months.  I looked at MyFico but it looks like it runs about $29.95/month for a ton of more scores.  I don't really like Credit Karma because it seems so far off.  Which credit monitoring services do you prefer and why?

[Anonymous]

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@Wovenyarn wrote:

I'm in the process of rebuilding my credit so I guard it very closely.  I love having the alerts whenever something hits my credit report.  I've had USAA for a few years which is $12.95/month but if you call and threaten to cancel, they will reduce to $6.95 for 6 months.  I looked at MyFico but it looks like it runs about $29.95/month for a ton of more scores.  I don't really like Credit Karma because it seems so far off.  Which credit monitoring services do you prefer and why?

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Two questions for you:

(1)  How important is cost to you?

(2)  Do you see yourself as (A) wanting to track progress over a few years, but don't anticipate a need to apply for any important credit during that rebuilding process?  Or, by way of contrast, do you see yourself as (B) needing to buy a car or a house (say) soon and therefore need a blow-by-blow description of many different FICO scores on a monthly basis?

If cost matters a fair amount, and 2A is a good description of you, then I encourage you to consider using a combination of a FICO and Vantage approach.  It's mostly free and still gets you a load of FICO scores once a year, along with the ability to track your overall progress.  Here's how it might work.

Subscribe to Karma and Credit.com.  Through Karma you have plenty of pulls of your TU and EQ reports and Vantage 3.0 scores -- as often as once a week.  Through CC you get your EX Vantage score once a month.  Compare these scores against themselves to see how you are gradually making progress.  For example, track the TU Vantage against itself.  If it is going up, then your TU FICO 8 is as well.  You can't conclude it's by the exact same amount but then again you don't need to know this month your exact TU FICO 8 score -- you just need to know whether you are improving.

Then once a year subscribe to some FICO based service (myFICO or whatever), grab a zillion scores, and then cancel it in a few days.  On the same day that you pull your FICO scores, also pull your Vantage scores.  Then during the next year your Vantage (appropiately adjusted) will give you some idea of what your FICOs are.

The advantages of an approach like that are low cost, lots of TU and EQ reports, and plenty of FICO scores once a year, along with a good metric for improvement during the year.

[Wovenyarn]

Thank you so much for the great response.  Cost is important but I prefer quality.  I'll pay more if I think I"m getting a better quality.  I am in the process of buying a home currently and once I close I will continue to rebuild my credit.  I"m going to take your advice and sign up for Karma and Credit.com and report back with the results. 

[Anonymous]

When do you think you are likely to buy your home?  Have you chosen the property and the lender and are in the process of final underwriting?  Or are you at least a few months away from that?  (Possibly just beginning the shopping process?)

Sounds like you are in 2B rather than 2A, so you are absolutely right to be looking carefully at true FICO scores on a regular basis.  The Vantage approach I mentioned is best for people who don't have an important credit need coming up.  Indeed, you should be looking at the particular FICO versions which will be used in the mortgage underwriting, and those are NOT the FICO 8 scores one sees in typical credit monitoring services.

[Wovenyarn]

We have found the house and the file is currently in underwriting.  We are set to close Sept 18. 

So the scores you are referring to would be isolated to MyFico?  The $29.95/month membership?

[Anonymous]

The FICO models that are used by mortgage lenders are very old models:

• Experian FICO Score 2  (also known as EX-98 or Risk Model v2)
• Transunion FICO Score 4  (also known as TU-04 or Transunion FICO Risk Score Classic 04)
• Equifax FICO Score 5  (also known as EQ-04 or Beacon 5)

They were released over 10 years ago.  The scores one typically gets as frequent updates by most credit monitoring services are, by way of contrast, FICO 8 scores, which is a more recent model.  When you first subscribe to myFICO, it gives you about every FICO flavor under the sun, but the frequent updates are (as I say) FICO 8 scores.

None of this matters in your situation.  You have chosen a property, chosen a lender, and are being underwritten right now based on whatever your scores were.  Knowing your mortgage scores ahead of time is only helpful if you have at least a few months to tweak them and get them better.  For the purposes of this property, I am guessing yours are set in stone.  I am sure your lender knows exactly what your mortgage scores are and can tell you.

What credit monitoring services offer the mortgage based scores?  I don't know.  MyFICO does.  Others may too.  If anyone knows and is reading this, can you answer the OP's question?

Note what I said above, however.  Unless you are planning to buy another house soon, or planning to refinance your mortgage in the next year, then you don't need to know what your mortgage scores are.  It's too late now to worry about your scores, since you are being underwritten as we speak.  But developing a long tierm plan for gradually increasing all your credit scores (regardless of model or vesion) is a good idea, and the approach I outlined originally is a cheap way to do that.

[Wovenyarn]

I think I need to clarify.  I"m not particularly worried about my scores for the house that I'm buying but as you can see my scores are still pretty low so I want to work on rebuilding after the home purchase and I enjoy logging in routinely and viewing my scores as well as getting alerts when something affects my score. 

[Anonymous]

I've been using creditchecktotal, it lets you track experian daily, and all 3 bureaus 3 times a month using Fico 8 model. There is a trial $1 for a week and then 29.95/month, but if you call to cancel they will offer 14.95/month. If you search the forum you will find more info for CCT.

I have used CCT and am content with service and price.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, nThePursuitOf.  Credit Check Total is something a lot of people seem to like here, but I couldn't remember the name.

So the OP should just decide how much he likes the pleasure of seeing FICO 8 scores every month.  CCT sounds like it costs $180 a year.  That's more than I feel like paying given that I can track general score progress for free, but the OP gets a real buzz out of seeing FICO alerts, so it may be worth it.  Does CCT give you alerts or do you just get your scores when you decide you want to pull an update?

[Wovenyarn]

Thank you for that recommendation. I have heard about CCT frequently in the forums.