Credit Monitoring and Free Credit Reports via TrueCredit

Written by Nickel - 10 Comments

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Awhile back, I noted that we had received a mysterious collections call, and later learned that we had been inadvertently sent to collections by our local Urgent Care facility. Unfortunately, I had used up my free annual credit reports when I first got the call, so when we later learned what was going on, I wanted to check to see if anything had subsequently shown up on our reports.

Our state actually requires the credit bureaus to give us two credit reports per agency per year, but the additional reports would’ve had to come via snail mail (much like requesting a credit report for a minor). Since I didn’t feel like waiting around, I decided to find another way to access our credit reports for free.

My search led me to TransUnion’s TrueCredit service, which is a credit monitoring and credit protection service. While their service typically costs $14.95/month, they have an introductory offer that gives you 30 days for free. The beauty of this offer is that it gives you unlimited access to all three of your credit reports. The downside is that it auto-renews, and you have to call in to cancel.

In the end, I decided to sign up with TrueCredit so I could keep track of my credit record while the collections saga was unfolding. I actually ended up sticking with them for the free month plus a paid month, as I wanted to be sure that nothing ended up creeping onto my report before I was confident that this matter was settled.

Earlier this week I checked my calendar and saw that the end of the second month was fast approaching, so I dropped by the TrueCredit website to get their contact info and cancel.

In case any of you find yourself in a similar situation, I thought I’d jot down some notes about the cancellation process:

(1) Call TrueCredit at 1-800-493-2392

(They’re only open Mon-Thurs, 8AM-Midnight; Fri/Sat, 8AM-8PM Eastern time.)

(2) Press ‘1′ for English, then ‘2′ for cancelling service

(3) Wait while you’re being transferred (I was disconnected once at this point)

(4) Tell them that you want to cancel and wade through their pleas to keep you as a customer

That’s it.

While they do their best to upsell you, TrueCredit can actually be quite useful under certain circumstances. In my case, it was well worth $14.95 to have unlimited access to my credit reports for two months while sorting things out with the collection agency. That being said, I can’t imagine paying $14.95/month on an ongoing basis for this sort of thing.

Published on January 16th, 2008 - 10 Comments
Filed under: Credit Cards, Identity Theft
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About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!

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Comments (scroll down to add your own):

  1. Equifax offers a very similar program and I’ve been using them at $9.95 per month ever since my identity was stolen in July of 2005. They actually caught the same guy trying to do it again. Yes, I pressed charges!

    Comment by Ron@TheWisdomJournal — Jan 16th 2008 @ 9:56 am

  2. A Warning — TrueCredit advertises unlimited access and unlimited daily pulls of your credit report, but if you pull a new report frequently (several times a week)they will cancel your service under the guise of a “fraud investigation.” They will not tell you the number of pulls that is “allowed” to avoid this cancellation — the CSRs do not even seem to know. This has happened to many people in the last six months.

    TrueCredit is a good service, but it is wrong for them to advertise unlimited pulls (”every day if you want” to quote their site) and then cancel your account for doing what they advertise.

    Comment by Jack — Jan 16th 2008 @ 10:15 am

  3. I’m going through the process of disputing some fraudulent items on my credit report, and am also out of free credit reports. I might have to use a service like this to check up on things in a month or two and get it all settled. Be sure to let us know if you encounter any shenanigans, such as TransUnion continuing to charge you after you’ve canceled.

    Jack: thanks for the tip. If I do use this TrueCredit thing, though, it might be a bonus if they cancel my account for me instead of forcing me to call in and cancel it myself.

    Comment by jayne — Jan 16th 2008 @ 10:35 am

  4. Also, if you do sign up and forget to cancel before it renews, do not hesitate to ask for a refund. I did that and after about 10 minutes of saying, “No, I don’t feel the need to monitor my credit on an hourly basis,” they gave me a refund.

    Comment by Lauren — Jan 16th 2008 @ 2:02 pm

  5. We used true credit for a couple months while I needed to monitor our report. Wal-mart offered a discount for it.

    Comment by My Dollar Plan — Jan 16th 2008 @ 2:39 pm

  6. I have had sucha hard time cancelling my service…
    The following were used: Computers down, system problem, blah blah blah, It took 45 mins to even find a number on their web site..It can be useful but beware of the difficulty in cancelling and of course the thousand why are you cancelling questions

    Comment by Zeke — Mar 1st 2008 @ 5:35 am

  7. Are they really FREE? Heard some are not and have hidden charges

    Anna

    Comment by Anna — Mar 14th 2009 @ 6:24 pm

  8. Anna: If you cancel before the end of the trial, yes.

    Comment by Nickel — Mar 16th 2009 @ 12:18 pm

  9. truecredit.com is a scam. If you don’t believe me, try them and give them your credit card #.

    I cancelled my account 4 days after signing up. their service is awful, does not speak english but reads off of a sheet.

    I left the phone call not knowing if I had been discontinued or not.

    Firstly, they billed my CC $14.95 within the first WEEK of signing up a FREE 30 DAY TRIAL. I immediately called me CC company and declared fraud after that happened, which was about 7 days after I signed up.

    Two weeks after cancelling the true credit account, I recieved 14 different charges of between 14.22 and 22.77 from various places aroudn the US.

    In 10 years of credit, I have never had any problems. My CC company cancelled the card and mailed me a new without me even knowing what happened. I hadnt recieved the bill yet, and when i recieved the new card, i immediately checked the old account billings ( and the fraud )

    DO NOT USE TRUECREDIT. if you do, remember, I warned you.

    Comment by Bri — Apr 13th 2009 @ 4:51 am

  10. i use truecredit.com with zero problems. I even got a free month by threatening to cancel. They allow daily monitoring of all 3 credit bureaus. Monthly pulls of all 3 credit bureaus, but daily pulls (1 per 24 hours) of Transunion credit report. CreditKarma.com also pulls transunion once a day.

    Comment by 4evermaat — Jun 2nd 2009 @ 2:02 pm

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