# How Effective are Credit Monitoring Services? **URL:** \ **Category:** Uncategorized\ **Created:** [September 17, 2023, 3:50am UTC](https://community.clark.com/t/how-effective-are-credit-monitoring-services/3473 "2023-09-17T03:50:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RasputinII](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.clark.com/rasputinii/32/334_2.png) [@RasputinII](https://community.clark.com/u/RasputinII)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 3:50am UTC](https://community.clark.com/t/how-effective-are-credit-monitoring-services/3473/1 "2023-09-17T03:50:51Z")
““If you freeze your credit, and you manage that appropriately — and it’s not that hard to do it — you really don’t need credit monitoring in and of itself,” said Eva Velasquez, the president of the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center.” > **[How effective are credit monitoring services?](https://www.aol.com/effective-credit-monitoring-services-130000649.html)** > > Thanks to nonstop data breaches, companies are paying for credit monitoring for many consumers. And while it can keep an eye on your accounts, cybersecurity experts say they aren't a cure-all. ---
**Author:** ![butler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@butler](https://community.clark.com/u/butler)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 5:40am UTC](https://community.clark.com/t/how-effective-are-credit-monitoring-services/3473/2 "2023-09-17T05:40:05Z")
A credit freeze (proactive) is substantially better than credit monitoring (reactive). ---
**Author:** ![robertpri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@robertpri](https://community.clark.com/u/robertpri)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 5:46am UTC](https://community.clark.com/t/how-effective-are-credit-monitoring-services/3473/3 "2023-09-17T05:46:56Z")
I have both. Why take a chance? ---
**Author:** ![RasputinII](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.clark.com/rasputinii/32/334_2.png) [@RasputinII](https://community.clark.com/u/RasputinII)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 3:20pm UTC](https://community.clark.com/t/how-effective-are-credit-monitoring-services/3473/4 "2023-09-17T15:20:08Z")
> [@butler](#): > > A credit freeze (proactive) is substantially better than credit monitoring (reactive). I agree and our credit has been frozen for many years. ---
**Author:** ![NancyM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/439d5e/32.png) [@NancyM](https://community.clark.com/u/NancyM)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 5:12pm UTC](https://community.clark.com/t/how-effective-are-credit-monitoring-services/3473/5 "2023-09-17T17:12:45Z")
I froze my credit a year or two back. I’m curious if I need to unfreeze all of them to get, say, a car loan. I won’t need a car loan any time soon (I hope!), but I’ll ask my credit union the next time I’m there – do they check all 3 credit bureaus, or just 1 or 2? ---
**Author:** ![RasputinII](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.clark.com/rasputinii/32/334_2.png) [@RasputinII](https://community.clark.com/u/RasputinII)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2023, 11:26pm UTC](https://community.clark.com/t/how-effective-are-credit-monitoring-services/3473/6 "2023-09-17T23:26:54Z")
> [@NancyM](#): > > I’m curious if I need to unfreeze all of them to get, say, a car loan. I won’t need a car loan any time soon (I hope!), but I’ll ask my credit union the next time I’m there – do they check all 3 credit bureaus, or just 1 or 2? My experience is that the vendor will tell you which credit reporting agency that you need to grant access to. Also, there is a timing option on the unfreeze so the freeze reinstates after a specific time like two week’s. ---
**Author:** ![rjratnip](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.clark.com/rjratnip/32/1821_2.png) [@rjratnip](https://community.clark.com/u/rjratnip)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2023, 9:00pm UTC](https://community.clark.com/t/how-effective-are-credit-monitoring-services/3473/7 "2023-09-18T21:00:14Z")
Credit has been frozen for years and I have a Credit Karma account. Don’t think I need much more and have never had issues. However, sometimes when I need to unfreeze the credit bureaus can be a pain. Normally, it’s pretty easy to unfreeze, but when it doesn’t work then you’re in trouble. Credit bureaus generally rank pretty high in the land of incompetence. ---
**Author:** ![robertpri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@robertpri](https://community.clark.com/u/robertpri)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2023, 9:35pm UTC](https://community.clark.com/t/how-effective-are-credit-monitoring-services/3473/8 "2023-09-18T21:35:37Z")
> [@rjratnip](#): > > Credit bureaus generally rank pretty high in the land of incompetence. Completely agree with that…! ---
**Author:** ![Gagurl](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.clark.com/gagurl/32/638_2.png) [@Gagurl](https://community.clark.com/u/Gagurl)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2023, 1:19am UTC](https://community.clark.com/t/how-effective-are-credit-monitoring-services/3473/9 "2023-09-19T01:19:00Z")
Check with the bank or car dealer you’re getting the loan through. They told us which credit agency they used and that’s the one I unfroze for a few days. We’ve had to do this multiple times over the years and ithas worked well. ---
**Author:** ![rjratnip](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/community.clark.com/rjratnip/32/1821_2.png) [@rjratnip](https://community.clark.com/u/rjratnip)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2023, 6:40pm UTC](https://community.clark.com/t/how-effective-are-credit-monitoring-services/3473/10 "2023-09-19T18:40:34Z")
Discover checks your credit daily. I just got an alert from them about a credit inquiry from yesterday that I did to increase the limit on one of my CCs. Between that, Credit Karma, and frozen credit, that should cover me.