ScoreWatch not reporting new CC

[steely72]

I recently opened a new CC account in January.   I have used the card and went through 1 full billing cycle.   I was never informed of this new account from ScoreWatch on my TransUnion account.  However, when I recently obtained a equifax report,  my CC balance was on there.  I signed up for ScoreWatch with equifax now also.  Why was I not alerted for the TransUnion account?  I get weekly emails from myFICO telling me there are no new changes.   Am I just wasting my money on these monitoring packages?  I read that on the equifax scorewatch you have to have your current score set as your goal in order for any change to report which I have now done.  Is there something I am missing on the TransUnion monitoring?

[Barry]

Hi Steely72,

I believe you're talking about not being alerted to the new credit card addition on your TransUnion report through FICO Quarterly Monitoring, to which you subscribed in January 2011.  Because this is a "quarterly" monitoring service, you can expect to be notified of this change with your next quarterly update in April.

As you said, your EQ report is already showing the new credit card.

Does that clarify things a bit?

-Barry

[steely72]

Since new accounts is a category under alerts, I guess I thought it would send me something telling me a new account was opened.  I was led to believe that this service was in place to protect you from identity theft.   If someone else opened an account under your name and you weren't aware of it,  the notification would alert you and you could look into it.   If this is the case then I'm assuming I will not receive score change alerts either.   I guess I will have to wait until my quarterly report.

[Barry]

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@steely72 wrote:

Since new accounts is a category under alerts, I guess I thought it would send me something telling me a new account was opened.  I was led to believe that this service was in place to protect you from identity theft.   If someone else opened an account under your name and you weren't aware of it,  the notification would alert you and you could look into it.   If this is the case then I'm assuming I will not receive score change alerts either.   I guess I will have to wait until my quarterly report.

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This is true for FICO Quarterly Monitoring.  The only alerts that come more frequently than quarterly are those that detect identity (name, address, etc.) changes from various non-credit bureau data sources, i.e. marketing databases, utilities, public record.