This Credit Sesame review will touch on Credit Sesame’s free credit report tools, free identity theft tools, and other interesting aspects of Credit Sesame.
What is Credit Sesame?
If you are like me, you are crazy skeptical when you put the word “free” next to the words “credit” and “report”.
When I was young and naïve, I was one of those people who signed up for a random company’s “free credit report” only to be charged for their services 30 days later. I vowed never to let that happen again!
While Credit Sesame doesn’t provide free credit reports, they do provide your credit score for free. The company also provides free credit monitoring, and they even give you free identity protection!
You may be asking yourself, “is Credit Sesame safe?” If you are wondering if Credit Sesame is safe, it will make you happy to know that you don’t even provide them your credit card number.
The details I provided to them included my address, email, and last four numbers of my social security number. I was very happy to not have to provide my entire social security number.
According to credit sesame, it takes 90 seconds to signup (it took me more like 45 seconds) so it really is quick, and you get all of these free services. It really is quick and easy to get started with these free tools.
Monitoring your credit with Credit Sesame
Credit Sesame will send you alerts when certain actions take place according to the TransUnion credit bureau.
For example, if your address changes, you will likely receive an email from Credit Sesame that the credit bureau received a change of address. Or, maybe you apply for a new loan, you will receive an email from Credit Sesame about that loan.
This monitoring is important because identity theft can be prevented if you are alerted of something you did not do. For example, if you did not apply for a new loan and are alerted that you did, you can take the necessary steps to stop the loan application ASAP.
It helps to be informed by them so you can try and catch any suspicious activity and stop it in its tracks..
Free Identity Theft Protection
This is going to sound crazy, but by being a FREE member of Credit Sesame, you are entitled to $50,000 of identity protection insurance. You will have access to speak with what they refer to as “identity restoration specialists”. These specialists can help you if you have a problem with identity theft. This way, you will have a team there to help you.
They do have a better service for a fee that will provide up to $1,000,000 of protection.
The paid service will likely provide more protection and areas of coverage. But, $50,000 of protection for $0 sounds pretty great to me!
Keep Track of Your Credit Score
You can keep track of your credit score through Credit Sesame. The company doesn’t use the FICO scores that banks see, but it uses the TransUnion VantageScore. These two scores should be no less than 30 points apart.
Remember that the free credit score tracking with Credit Sesame may not be your exact credit score. Pay attention more to the trend of your credit over time. Make sure it is going in the correct direction.
You should also check your credit reports annually from the credit bureaus. You can do this one time per year for each of the three credit bureaus over at annualcreditreport.com.
How does Credit Sesame make money?
While there are free services at Credit Sesame, there are other services the company provides for a monthly fee. They have their advanced, pro, and platinum plans.
Each of the plans includes a few more services than the other, with the platinum being the best plan. Some of the services the plans include are – social security number monitoring, public records monitoring, 3 Bureau credit monitoring with alerts, just to name a few.
My suggestion is to signup for free for Credit Sesame here. Check out the features and decide later if you want enhanced protection from any of their better services.
To sign up, you just create a username and password as seen here.
Then, add your address, email, and last 4 of your social security number.
Credit Sesame review conclusion
It’s hard to beat free, and you get quite a lot for just signing up for Credit Sesame. It takes less than 90 seconds to sign up, and they don’t even ask you for your full social security number or for a credit card number. For this reason alone, you can count on Credit Sesame being safe.
The way I see it, in less than 90 seconds, you can have access to credit monitoring, 50k of identity theft protection insurance, and keep track of your credit score. For these reasons, I really don’t see much downside to Credit Sesame.
Thanks for reading and I hope this review of Credit Sesame was helpful!
Disclaimer: These are the ideas and opinions of the author. The author is not responsible for the actions of those who read the posts on this blog. Each individual reader has a unique situation and unique needs. This blog is not intended to solve those unique situations of the readers. This blog is not liable for decisions made by the readers of this blog.
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