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Paid $35 for a credit monitoring service and it caught a fraud alert while bank's system missed it
Signed up for one of those credit monitoring apps after seeing it recommended here, figured it was worth trying. Last month it flagged a new account opening that my bank's alerts completely ignored. Called the credit bureau and got it frozen within an hour. Has anyone else found the free bank alerts are way slower than paid services?
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spencer_coleman1mo ago
...and that's exactly why I stopped bothering with bank alerts altogether. They're basically just checking if your name matches or something. I had a case where my card got skimmed at a gas station and the bank didn't catch it until I called them. The paid service flagged the suspect charge two days before the bank even noticed anything was off. To be fair though, I've also heard of people getting false alarms from the paid ones that turned into a nightmare trying to sort out. So maybe there's no perfect system, just less broken ones.
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william_harris1mo ago
I had the SAME thing happen with my bank - they didn't catch a fake charge at a restaurant for three weeks. My paid service had it flagged within 8 hours. I now keep my credit FROZEN at all three bureaus like you said and only unfreeze when I need to apply for something. Makes me sleep WAY better than trusting the bank's free alerts.
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Yeah I've had that exact thing happen. "Paid $35 and it caught a fraud alert while bank's system missed it" - that's pretty much my story too. I found out the hard way that banks only check against your basic info and history while the paid services actually look at all the data feeds from the three bureaus in real time. The real trick is to not rely on just one thing. I keep my credit frozen with all three bureaus unless I'm applying for something, and then I just use a free service like Credit Karma to check once a month. That way I catch stuff without paying monthly fees.
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