Once of the best things you can do to protect yourself against identity theft is to check your credit file on a regular basis.  If you haven’t done so already you can go to www.annualcreditreport.com.

So the obvious question is how often should you check your credit file?  Well there are a lot of opinions on this but most identity theft protection experts agree that checking your credit report more frequently than once a year is best.

When it comes to identity theft, time is of the essence.  Personally I use a the Legal Shield credit monitoring service that constantly monitors my credit file at all three of the credit monitoring services (i.e. Equifax, Trans Union and Experian) alerts me whether or not there are any changes.  It’s a great feeling to get the email that states there were no changes to my credit file.  It gives me peace of mind to knowing that I’m proactively monitoring my credit file.

There is a difference of opinion regarding credit monitoring service.  I agree that it is not a “must” and that you could monitor your credit file yourself.  However, in order to get your credit report without paying you would have to request it from each of the credit monitoring services every 4 months.  Based on the fact that you can get one free credit report from each of the credit reporting agencies annually, they you could request a free report every 4 months.

One issue there is that the credit reporting agencies don’t always have the same information on their version of your credit file.  They depend on your creditors to send them the information and some creditors only send information to one and not all three agencies.  So you don’t always get the full story by monitoring them one at a time every 4 months.

The other reason that I use a credit monitoring service is for the help that they provide in the event that your identity is stolen.  The other day I got a notice from the credit monitoring service regarding a repossed car showing up on my credit file.  I immediately contacted the credit monitoring service and explained to them that my car at the time was fully paid for, plus I never had an auto loan from the bank reporting the repossession.  I wasn’t sure what to do and they calmly walked me through the steps that I needed to do.  They also checked on national databases that I don’t have access to.  The peace of mind that they gave me is well worth the small fee they charge, in my opinion.

Not too long after that I was in the market for a new car.  Can you imagine the shock and headache I would have had while I was at the car dealership if I didn’t resolve the erroneous repossession on my credit file? It would have delayed my ability to purchase the new car until I got it resolved.

That is another reason why I like to check my credit file monthly.  It not only give you a chance to find and correct errors on your credit file, but you also never know when you are going to need to use your credit.  You spend a lot of effort trying to build up your credit, it only makes sense to spend a little time to keep it correct.