Your credit determines a lot in your financial life. It affects the interest rates you're offered and determines whether or not you'll get approved for a loan.
On top of that, if your personal information gets into the wrong hands, you could be dealing with identity theft or fraud, which can also impact your credit.
Your credit score comes from the information in your credit report, which is a summary of your credit history and outstanding loans. The report comes from a credit bureau. There are three credit bureaus in the US, one of them being TransUnion.
About TransUnion
TransUnion is a credit bureau, also known as a credit reporting agency. TransUnion aims to provide "information for good" to help consumers manage their credit and minimize risk.
Though TransUnion offers products for businesses and the public sector, it mainly offers credit reports, credit scores, and identity protection products to consumers.
Costs, services, etc.
You can sign up for credit monitoring services with TransUnion for $24.95 per month. Through this service, you'll receive access to your credit report and credit score at any time.
You'll also receive email updates if there are any changes to your report and get personalized help based on your debt and credit situation to improve your score.
If someone applies for credit in your name, you'll immediately be notified with instant alerts. That way you can stop fraud before it happens.
As part of its subscription service, you can access TransUnion's online credit score simulator as well. This tool helps users see how future events and actions might affect their credit score.
For example, if you're concerned about how closing a credit card or applying for a new loan will affect your credit score, you can use this tool to find out.
On top of that, TransUnion subscribers get access to CreditCompass. The service provides personalized recommendations to get your credit score in shape, based on your current situation.
In addition to its subscription service, TransUnion also offers free identity theft and credit monitoring through TrueIdentity. You can put a lock on your credit report, get alerts about any changes, and more. The service provides up to $25,000 in identity theft insurance.
To sign up for TransUnion, you'd apply online by providing your personal information, creating an account, and verifying your identity.
Pros and cons of TransUnion
TransUnion offers robust credit monitoring services for a fee but also provides some protections with its TrueIdentity identity protection for free.
The pros of its service include access to scores and reports, as well as tools like CreditCompass and the credit score simulator, which can help you make informed decisions with credit.
One of the main cons is that, to cancel your account, you have to call TransUnion's customer service line at (855) 681-3196.
The fee of $24.95 is also a bit higher than the other credit bureaus' monthly subscription offerings. Equifax and Experian, the other two bureaus, have subscriptions available at $19.95 per month and $19.99 per month.
Should you use TransUnion?
TransUnion's free TrueIdentity offering could be a useful tool to protect your information at no cost. But should you splurge on the subscription package at $24.95 per month? Maybe not so much.
You can access all three of your credit reports from each of the bureaus once a year at AnnualCreditReport.com, so the monthly fee might not be worth it.
Additionally, TransUnion uses the VantageScore 3.0 credit score model, even though FICO is the most widely used credit score.
If you want to get your VantageScore for free and have credit monitoring, you can use Credit Karma instead.
Between AnnualCreditReport.com and a service like Credit Karma, you can get most of the perks of the TransUnion subscription service for free. But if you'd like to use the credit simulator or get personalized advice because you have a delicate credit situation, it could be worth it.
It's important to review the pros and cons before signing up and know what you're getting out of it. You can also try out TransUnion's free TrueIdentity service to start and see if you'd like to upgrade to the subscription model.
Disclosure: This post is brought to you by the Personal Finance Insider team. We occasionally highlight financial products and services that can help you make smarter decisions with your money. We do not give investment advice or encourage you to adopt a certain investment strategy. What you decide to do with your money is up to you. If you take action based on one of our recommendations, we get a small share of the revenue from our commerce partners. This does not influence whether we feature a financial product or service. We operate independently from our advertising sales team.
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