Many credit monitoring subscriptions also include some type of help if your identity has been stolen.
But a court might well order remedies like added security precautions or help with credit monitoring.
Get your credit reports from AnnualCreditReport.com or a credit monitoring service and review them carefully.
Secondly, subscribe to a credit monitoring service through one of the major credit bureaus.
Consumers may also be realizing that the credit monitoring these companies offer can be had for free.
FORBES: Consumers Are Ditching The $2.4 Billion ID Theft Protection Market
Most credit monitoring services will provide your score for free when you sign up for their service.
In the wake of its security breach, ChoicePoint offered one year's worth of free credit monitoring to the consumers affected.
Selling credit monitoring directly to consumers is "an area of focus for growth for us, " says Colleen Martin, TransUnion's spokeswoman.
Though credit monitoring services are still a tiny part of credit agencies' revenue, they are among these companies' fastest-growing lines of business.
The agreement with the OCC also addresses certain billing practices relating to Credit Monitoring products administered by third-party vendors, Capital One said.
FORBES: What's In Your Wallet? If It's a Capital One Card, You May Be Due a Refund
Such services as lawyers on retainer and credit monitoring are now available.
It may also offer a free credit monitoring service to help check your account and pay for the initial cost of a security freeze.
The FTC charged that two Web sites owned by Experian Consumer Direct--Consumerinfo.com and Freecreditreport.com--mislead several million unwary consumers into signing up for a credit monitoring service.
Justine Rivero is the Credit Advisor for CreditKarma.com, a free credit management website that helps more than 5 million consumers access their truly free credit score and free credit monitoring.
In its first public enforcement action, the CFPB found that third-party call-center vendors of Capital One Bank pressured or misled customers into paying for payment protection and credit monitoring products when they activated their credit cards, according to a press release.
FORBES: What's In Your Wallet? If It's a Capital One Card, You May Be Due a Refund
What is certain is that you do not need to pay a fee and subscribe to a credit report monitoring service.
In a December report, the CFPB estimated that 26 million of the 44 million people who got their credit reports in 2011 did so through various credit-monitoring services, even though free reports are available at AnnualCreditReport.com.
The federal government has streamlined and simplified the process of monitoring credit health.
"You look no different than somebody with a big fat balance, " says John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education at SmartCredit.com, which sells credit-score monitoring services based on its own scoring formulas.
WSJ: Getting Going: Why the Latest Credit-Score Fixes Fall Short
In the meantime, consumers with scores in the lower tiers should wait a few months before applying for a loan, and follow basis financial advice such as paying bills on time, monitoring their credit reports and managing debt to help raise their scores.
Selling credit scores, reports and monitoring services has become a big business.
But we both keep an eye on our joint accounts (which makes good sense for a number of reasons, including monitoring identity and credit card theft), and we both discuss how our money is being saved and spent.
Enforcing stricter licence application checks, consistent policing, ongoing supervision and monitoring of high-risk credit traders throughout the period of their licence.
Like equity analysts, Keenan's staff of 24 do bottom-up research, monitoring and modeling free cash flow estimates to create their own credit ratings for borrowers.
She said that developing countries needed to respond by beefing up bank supervision, restricting credit to fast-growing areas, imposing capital requirements that changed with the economic cycle and monitoring their foreign exchange exposures.
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