My wife and I put ourselves on a budget two months ago. It’s been amazing to see where all of our money is actually going. It turns out that we were paying $7.95 per month for a service from Equifax. Until this evening, I had no idea what this $7.95 per month was providing me. In addition, I had no idea where to go or who to call to cancel! (I do vaguely remember signing up for something earlier this year when pulling my free credit report.)
So I did the only thing I knew to do. I googled “equifax.” This lead me to their member’s center where I requested a forgotten password and user name, and a few minutes later, I had logged into my account.
It turns out that I’m not going to cancel just yet after all. I’ve only browsed this site for 5 minutes, but I already know:
- that my credit score is 741
- that my score has ranged from 714 to 741 over the past year
- when the score changed
- why the score changed
I also found an error. Equifax had the credit limit on my lone credit card at $3,451.00. In reality, this card has a $6,100.00 limit. This may not amount to a big difference in my score, but it can only help. (For a few tips to increase your credit score, check out Liz Pulliam Weston’s article, “7 fast fixes for your credit score.”) I have already placed a phone call to my bank’s credit bureau dispute department. They are currently closed but I plan on following up tomorrow afternoon to have them correctly adjust my limit with Equifax.
While I may eventually cancel this monthly service, we are beginning to think about purchasing a house in the next one or two years, so I am somewhat intrigued by this convenient way to monitor my credit. I’ll actually use what I have been paying for this past year and let you know what I think a few months down the road!
