By practicing safe browsing habits, utilizing dark web monitoring, and developing strong security practices, you can remain ahead of the bad guys. WebDetect is available for standalone purchase, but also comes bundled with Complete Premier, apparently.ĭid You Know? Millions upon millions of records show up in dark web marketplaces, but that doesn’t mean you have to be too worried. Once we clicked “activate,” we were, oddly, brought to what looked like the same screen we reached when we first purchased Complete Premier, but this time it was for a product called Equifax WebDetect. This function monitors sites that deal in the buying and selling personal information like social security numbers and financial information. Great news there!Īfter that, we wanted to activate our Internet Scanning. This is an added layer of protection beyond the fraud alert and one that makes sure our reports are extremely secure. We love this functionality and have only seen it a few times before, like when we got acquainted with IDWatchdog’s ID theft protection services. Once activated, this locked our Experian credit file, meaning that no one could access it without our explicit permission. Next on the list was our Single-Bureau Lock. In a few days, we received a confirmation email to let us know everything was all set up. The fraud alert was automatically placed on our Equifax credit file, and Equifax contacted the two other bureaus to do the same. We went ahead and activated that service. They work by informing the credit monitoring bureaus that they need to perform more thorough vetting-such as calling you directly-when new lines of credit or loans are applied for. Placing a fraud alert on your credit file is one of the best things you can do to protect yourself from identity theft. We can’t remember seeing this functionality with any other service, and honestly, it’s fantastic that it shows up here. This places a fraud alert on each of our credit reports that automatically renews every year. Don’t hit the back button, or you might get double-charged.įirst on the list was our automatic fraud alerts.
#Equifax lock and alert code#
Just something to note-after entering the code that is either texted or emailed to you, it can take between 60-90 seconds for the account to become active. Once that was done, we verified our identity via two-factor authentication and completed our order. This annual plan is something to consider if you’re looking to save a few bucks. We could pay $19.95 per month of Equifax protection, or $199.95 annually-a savings of about 40 bucks for the year. Once we were done with that, we were asked to enter our financial information and to select a billing cycle. To get around this, make up an outrageous answer to a security question, but just make sure you’ll remember it. The reasoning is that if an identity thief has enough access to your identity to be at the point where they’re guessing security questions, it wouldn’t be too difficult for them to figure out the name of your childhood best friend or middle school you graduated from. There are many experts that argue security questions are no longer effective measures for protection. Let’s talk about that last item really quickly, though. It’s worth mentioning here that if you’re looking for a family plan, we recently created a comprehensive guide covering the best identity protection for families.Īfter entering our personal information, we were asked to create our account by generating a username, a password, and a security question. At $19.95 per month, it’s similar to Complete Premier, but it comes with protections for up to four children.
#Equifax lock and alert upgrade#
24/7 Access to Equifax Credit Score and ReportĪs you can see, there are several critical services that overlap, but for the extra three dollars per month, you get some pretty significant bonuses when you upgrade from ID Patrol to Complete Premier.Īlso keep in mind that Equifax has a family plan option.
0 kommentar(er)
