wich credit monitory / credit watch product do you like best?

[Anonymous]

Hey Everybody:  I'm curious to know what product you all think is the best as a low cost, over all tool for credit monitoring.  I have purchased plain FICO reports, and Suze Orman FICO reports, and watched the videos about each product and I have a pretty good idea about what I need to be doing to improve my score.  And, From what I can see I think the quarterly credit monitory gives the most bang for your buck.

but I'm wondering if anybody might have a different perspective.

Thanks

[llecs]

IMO, it depends on your goals. If you are in the middle of repair or rebuilding, then knowing your FICO score as it changes may be imporant for you. Maybe you want to know what happens to your score if this or that happens or maybe changes are always happening to your report, then pulling frequently would help. On the flip side, if you are in the gardening phase and nothing's happening, then it may not be as important to pull so much.

I started here just over 2 yrs ago and my goal was to see my score everytime a change occured. Unfortunately for my wallet, changes were happening as much as several times monthly because baddies were falling off, new positive accounts were coming on and I wanted to know the impact of all of that. In my case, I found it best to subscribe to a CMS. For $20 or less, you can pull your reports (all 3) daily and see the changes (ignore the scores on these....they are not FICO scores). As changes occurred, I came back to myFICO to pull my reports to see the FICO score change. Each report, if pulled individually, runs around $15.95 (FICO Standard). I would pull each as many as 5-6x/month during that period to catch the changes. To help offset the costs, I also subscribed to ScoreWatch. SW monitors EQ for changes and offers a $5 off future reports. That savings basically covered my cost for SW.

Now that I'm out of repair phase, I scaled back my purchases, but will buy both reports if I see a major change (none, knock on wood), and will purchase monthly to track any score changes due to aging, util, etc. Once we buy our home, then I'll coast to a gardening phase of my credit career and only puchase FICO reports quarterly. I'll let SW do most of that and keep subscribing to TU Quarterly monitoring to track changes on TU, at a discount.

Of course it goes without saying, google "MyFICO discount codes" first.

[soliloquy]

Thank you for this thread! I was up until 12 last night comparing and contrasting the credit monitoring sites. The problem that I found is that most of the ones that offer "scores" don't offer FICO scores which I'm quickly learning the folks around here call FAKO scores. I'm not sure what good FAKO scores are? I look foward to everyone's responses. I'm waiting for two collections to come off my credit reports (they were errors) and I'm obsessed with finding out the exact moment those reports are updated! I'm brand new to this forum and like the previous poster when he first came, I'm excited and I want to see the changes as they come.

Message Edited by soliloquy on 01-29-2010 12:32 PM

[MarineVietVet]

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@soliloquy wrote:

Thank you for this thread! I was up until 12 last night comparing and contrasting the credit monitoring sites. The problem that I found is that most of the ones that offer "scores" don't offer FICO scores which I'm quickly learning the folks around here call FAKO scores. I'm not sure what good FAKO scores are? I look foward to everyone's responses. I'm waiting for two collections to come off my credit reports (they were errors) and I'm obsessed with finding out the exact moment those reports are updated! I'm brand new to this forum and like the previous poster when he first came, I'm excited and I want to see the changes as they come.

Message Edited by soliloquy on 01-29-2010 12:32 PM

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They are very good for the companies who sell them.

For consumers they are no help at all.

[Anonymous]

Yeah the FAKO scores are confusing and of no help.  But what is also confusing is having a legitimate FICO score for each credit bureau with a different number.  I'm kind of in the maintenace to gradual improvement stage now.  Trying to lower debt ratios and get more inquires off.  

Based on my experience scorewatch is probably the best product for me and cost the least. so unless I hear some new and startling information I'll probably be using that from now on.  They say to keep an eye on all three reports because they each have different criteria but when I pulled all three that all had essentially the same credits and similiar scores.  So now I'm just watching transunion which seems to be the most popular for companies to use. 

Unless you have deep pockets, I would be careful about becomign "obsessed" with knowing when each score changes immediately because again each company is different and has a different score. I think the main thing is plan your work and work your plan and the scores will take care of themselves.  Just keep a pulse on them.

[Cotton_Britches]

I like Score Watch. It sends you alerts when your EQ score changes, inquires to your account, etc.

Don't sign up for the one that Experian sells from it's website. If they can't sell their score through FICO, I don't want it.

[Jazzzy]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Yeah the FAKO scores are confusing and of no help.  But what is also confusing is having a legitimate FICO score for each credit bureau with a different number.  I'm kind of in the maintenace to gradual improvement stage now.  Trying to lower debt ratios and get more inquires off.  

Based on my experience scorewatch is probably the best product for me and cost the least. so unless I hear some new and startling information I'll probably be using that from now on.  They say to keep an eye on all three reports because they each have different criteria but when I pulled all three that all had essentially the same credits and similiar scores.  So now I'm just watching transunion which seems to be the most popular for companies to use. 

Unless you have deep pockets, I would be careful about becomign "obsessed" with knowing when each score changes immediately because again each company is different and has a different score. I think the main thing is plan your work and work your plan and the scores will take care of themselves.  Just keep a pulse on them.

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Hi credit_warrior...I love your advice. I can be fairly obsessive/compulsive, and it was hard for me when I started watching my reports and scores to not know every little move. But...to balance off my O/C, I'm also very frugal. I decided when I started this trek that I could not pay for reports and scores more than necessary.

I have Score Watch for EQ (2 reports annually plus score monitoring) and Quarterly Monitoring for TU (4 reports & scores annually). I also check my reports through annualcreditreport.com each year. I spread those out and do a different report every 4 months. I can also get 2 free EX reports each year through Quizzle. They try to sell you other credit products, but I just ignore that.

That gives me a good mix of what I need to know.

[haulingthescoreup]

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missypants wrote:

I like Score Watch. It sends you alerts when your EQ score changes, inquires to your account, etc.

Don't sign up for the one that Experian sells from it's website. If they can't sell their score through FICO, I don't want it.

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And just to clarify/ repeat, it's not the Experian FICO anyway.

[newstart2010]

I use the USAA credit monitoring with the FAKO scores, but I am not watching my scores so heavily yet.  Right now I am focused on the report actually getting cleaned up.  And since they do daily updates it allows me to see if CAs or OCs have made the changes I have asked for.

When I see the FAKOs go up, then I order a FICO score from here.  I only use the FAKOs as a guage that there might be a change to the FICO, and that way I do not spend too much money on refreshing the scores as often as my OCD would like for me to.