I don’t care what the score means, I just don’t want to have to hire a lawyer, and a watchdog, and a monitoring agency, to keep someone from stealing my identity on a network I have no control over.
You probably should because it determines the rates you’ll pay when you get a loan (mortgage, auto, etc).
But I agree, security is absolutely the bigger concern, especially if you won’t need a loan anytime soon. That said, those monitoring agencies are worthless, just get an app like Credit Karma or Experian (free, don’t pay for anything they offer) so you get alerts when anything changes in your credit file. If you get a new account alert and you didn’t open one, congrats, you’ve been hacked! You’ll get a lot of spammy notifications, so maybe check it every month or two and disable notifications.
Monitoring is only a tiny fraction of the problem. I’ve had ongoing identity theft problems for decades now. Which means I have to hire lawyers, and call the FBI, and deal with multiple fraud departments. All to prove I didn’t have a damn thing to do with random companies reporting debts that I’ve never had, on accounts I never opened.
Woot, that’s awful. Is your social like a super memorable one or something? Surely at this point you could just get a new one. I know they don’t like that, but if you’re getting the FBI involved, surely he’s cheaper to do some paperwork.
I don’t care what the score means, I just don’t want to have to hire a lawyer, and a watchdog, and a monitoring agency, to keep someone from stealing my identity on a network I have no control over.
You probably should because it determines the rates you’ll pay when you get a loan (mortgage, auto, etc).
But I agree, security is absolutely the bigger concern, especially if you won’t need a loan anytime soon. That said, those monitoring agencies are worthless, just get an app like Credit Karma or Experian (free, don’t pay for anything they offer) so you get alerts when anything changes in your credit file. If you get a new account alert and you didn’t open one, congrats, you’ve been hacked! You’ll get a lot of spammy notifications, so maybe check it every month or two and disable notifications.
Monitoring is only a tiny fraction of the problem. I’ve had ongoing identity theft problems for decades now. Which means I have to hire lawyers, and call the FBI, and deal with multiple fraud departments. All to prove I didn’t have a damn thing to do with random companies reporting debts that I’ve never had, on accounts I never opened.
Woot, that’s awful. Is your social like a super memorable one or something? Surely at this point you could just get a new one. I know they don’t like that, but if you’re getting the FBI involved, surely he’s cheaper to do some paperwork.
There is no cheap way out, it takes lawyers and years.