A few weeks ago I got an email from Equifax's TrustedID that I would be getting a year of ID Notify from Experian. Today I got an email from EQ with the header "Action Requested: Your TrustedID® Subscription Will Expire", which got my attention. The message reads:
"This email is a follow-up to the notice you recently received from Equifax about the opportunity for another year of complimentary credit monitoring. Equifax® has chosen Experian® to provide you with this additional year of free credit monitoring services through their IDnotify™ product", with a button to click to enroll. Enrolling is pretty straight forward, your first & last name, last 4 digits of your social, and date of birth. You get a complete credit report of your open & closed accounts, but no credit score. And most important to me a button to lock & unlock your EX report.
I've been paying $9.99 per month for the Experian Identity Works Plus to have the ability to lock & unlock EX, the only credit monitoring service I pay for as I get free lock/unlock service from EQ through TrustedID and from TU through TrueIdentity. So, I'll be canceling Identity Works before the next due date. No more free unlimited EX Fico8 scores, but my credit scores have been very stable for some time now, and I can get free monthly EX Fico scores from Amex and Discover Scorecard. I don't think I'll take a trip to Vegas to spend that $9.99/mo., but nice to get rid of it. Congress made freezing & unfreezing your credit report free, and locking/unlocking should be free as well - it's my personal information and their carelessness that made it vulnerable.
EDIT: What a bunch of complete idiots Experian is!!! I called to cancel Indentity Works Plus at the only phone number they provide: 1-855-962-6943. They require you to enter your full Social Security number before you can proceed. I tried 9 zeros and got "invalid number, goodbye" 3 times. I was calling on my free Google Voice service and don't consider voice over internet to be secure, so I finally called back on my carrier's network and gave them my freakin' social. I got to a rep pretty fast who then needed my membership # to bring up my account, why not ask for that at the beginging instead of my full SS#???? Idiots.
Anyway, the rep cancelled me, but then advised on Nov. 24 when my service ends my credit report will revert to unlocked, so now I have an alert in my Outlook calendar to check IDnotify on the 24th to re-lock my report, so folks who cancel ID orks be aware of that.
