It depends. Some consumer advocates believe that consumers should not have to pay a fee to monitor their own credit. The best way to monitor your credit for free is to request a free credit report from one of the three credit bureaus every four months (for example, Equifax in January, Experian in May, and TransUnion in September) to look for evidence of identity theft (for example, new accounts and charges that are not yours). You can do this for free at the Web site www.annualcreditreport.com.
If you have reason to believe that you could be a victim of identity theft because of a security breach (for example, a stolen laptop with your personal data in it), a credit monitoring service can be very valuable. In fact, in these situations, free credit monitoring services are often provided free of charge to potential victims for a period of time (for example, six months to a year). In other cases, the cost of credit monitoring is a major factor. Charges of over $100 per year are not uncommon.
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