thegoldenbuddah...
I was recently introduced to exactly such a service by my Credit Union.
As noted on this page from CreditCards.LoveToKnow.com:
"Along with Experian and Trans Union, Equifax is one of the three
major credit bureaus. This particular bureau has over 107 years of
solid history as an information provider and S & P 500 Company."
http://creditcards.lovetoknow.com/Equifax
Equifax now offers several product to consumers for the sake of
protecting them from the ever-increasing threat of identity theft,
and they are certainly among the most trustworthy providers of
such services. Their main product page is here:
https://www.econsumer.equifax.com/consumer/sitepage.ehtml?forward=products
Because they are one of the 3 major credit monitoring and reporting
agencies, they can monitor ALL your credit cards with all banks,
credit unions, agencies, department stores, etc.
Their premier personal protection service is called Equifax Credit
Watch? Gold, for a nominal fee of $12.95/month, and provides notice
within 24 hours, which is as 'real-time' as it gets for this service:
Benefits Include:
- Comprehensive credit file monitoring and automated alerts
of key changes to your Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion
credit reports
- Wireless alerts and customizable alerts available
- Free 3-in-1 Credit Report and unlimited Equifax Credit Report?
- Up to $20,000 Identity Fraud Expense Coverage with no deductible
(certain limitations and exclusions apply)? at no additional
charge to you
- Knowledgeable Customer Care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
https://www.econsumer.equifax.com/consumer/sitepage.ehtml?forward=tri_monitor_detail
A sample of the contents of the customizable reports can be
seen on this page:
https://www.econsumer.equifax.com/consumer/sitepage.ehtml?forward=trimon_sample_summary
Click around on the sample report to see what is included.
Notice that Alert Preferences can be customized:
Balance % Change: 20% (set how much of a balance change on any
of your accounts will trigger an alert. If you want an alert
in the event of any change at all, set it low, but not to 0,
which inactivates the feature).
Balance $ Change: $200 (set how much of a balance change on any
of your accounts will trigger an alert. If you want an alert
in the event of any change at all, set it low, but not to 0,
which inactivates the feature).
Dormant Card Activity: 6 months (set how many months you want
between dormancy and activity before you are alerted).
Wireless Alerts: Inactive (set active if you want to receive
alerts on a mobile phone in addition to standard email alerts).
You mention your interest in having the information transmitted
to a third party. If the cards you wish to monitor belong to a
family member, you may wish to explore the Equifax Credit Watch?
Gold Family Program:
https://www.econsumer.equifax.com/consumer/sitepage.ehtml?forward=fesng_detail
Whether or not the third party is related to the owner of the
credit card, the cardowner's permission would of course be
required for the information to be sent to a third party.
If such an arrangement is agreed upon by the cardowner, they
can arrange for the email alerts to be sent to the third party
by inputting the third party's email address in the account
profile, or by having the emails sent to their own address
and subsequently forwarded to the third party.
Other financial institutions offer similar services, but they
seem to be based on the Equifax service, and provide essentially
identical features, such as Citi® Credit Monitoring Service:
http://www.creditmonitoring.citi.com/gs/english/LM_CCMS.asp
Experian, one of the other 3 major credit monitoring and
reporting agencies, offers their own version of such a product:
http://www.experian.com/consumer_online_products/index.html
If you have questions, please post a Request for Clarification
before rating this answer.
sublime1-ga
Additional information may be found from an exploration of
the links resulting from the Google searches outlined below.
Searches done, via Google:
"real time" "credit monitoring"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22real+time%22+%22credit+monitoring%22
equifax
://www.google.com/search?q=equifax |
