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Watching your credit is extremely important as you don’t want to find out you’ve had your identity stolen several months after its happened. Transunion is one of the “big three” credit bureaus, along with Equifax and Experian, and one of the best at sending you immediate alerts if new accounts pop up. If a new account is reported, you’ll get an immediate email alert, and if you didn’t open it yourself, you’ll be able to shut down the identity thief pretty quickly by getting in touch with the credit bureaus.
Transunion makes it relatively simple to sign up for their premium credit monitoring service, which also includes your credit score. I’ve signed up for it myself to show you what it entails this will take you to the signup page.
The first thing you’re going to see is this (FYI it could look slightly different on mobile):
All basic information you would need for anything related to your credit. You’ll scroll down a little further and get to this:
Anything that has to do with your credit is going to require your Social Security number. Transunion is one of the three major credit bureaus, almost anytime you apply for a loan/credit card, they are getting your SSN anyway to run your credit. They’ll need your phone number and email address to help verify you are who you say you are. The same goes for your address as Transunion is going to match up what you enter with your credit file. After this basic information, you’ll get to this:
The ToS and privacy policy are about as basic as you get. Feel free to look over them if you want, and then you’ll click “continue to step 2”. Once you’ve entered your basic personal information, you’ll be taken here:
This is just to create an account with Transunion, which you will use to monitor your credit, conduct freezes and check your credit score once you get through everything. After you make your login details, you’ll be taken here:
This is where you’ll enter your payment details. It’s $29.99/month, but you can cancel pretty easily anytime from inside your account, or by phone, if you decide it isn’t for you. Once you’ve entered your payment information you’ll be taken here:
Once you click “Accept & Agree”, you’ll be taken here:
When you hit “Submit my Info” your credit card will be charged and your account will be created. Transunion will also match up the details you provided with your credit file. Sometimes, you might need to answer security questions or speak with someone on the phone before your account is created, just to make sure it’s actually you. If that happens, your credit card won’t be charged until they actually clear you and your account is created. Once you’re verified and your account is created you’ll be taken to your dashboard:
I only touch on some of the features found in your dashboard but you can see the main thing is your credit score and your alerts. You’ll also notice you can easily lock both your Transunion and Equifax information from the dashboard. Basically, what I found out was that there is nothing too shocking on my credit report, but Transunion would let me know as soon as they see something pop up. Playing around a little bit more in the dashboard, you’ll find this:
As you can see, they give you all sorts of benefits with the fraud alerts, credit freezes, ID theft insurance, etc. With information about the accounts on your credit report, your credit score and everything else they provide in one centralized location, Transunion provides a pretty solid service. Again, if you’re unhappy with them at anytime, you can cancel right from your account without having to jump through hoops. Take a look at the Transunion dashboard for yourself and make sure you don’t have any surprises on your credit and use the credit monitor to keep yourself safe from identity thieves.