If you’re an AAA member in California, Hawaii, New Mexico or Texas, you’re suddenly eligible for a free credit monitoring service, provided by Experian.
While I was looking through the fine print (a free service for you provided by ConsumerismCommentary.com), I found this, which gave me pause:
You are receiving a complimentary credit monitoring membership. Your membership is effective for the period disclosed to you when you received your activation code. Should you choose to discontinue your membership for any reason before expiration of the then applicable membership term for which you are entitled, you may cancel your membership by calling the toll-free number listed on this Web Site or the toll-free number listed in the welcome materials sent to you. Please be aware that if, at the end of your promotional membership, you decide to continue your membership for a monthly/annual fee, you will have an opportunity to re-enroll at a separate website with different Terms and Conditions.
But the e-mail I got from AAA stated:
This benefit is complimentary to AAA members—there are no hidden fees or charges. You won’t be asked to provide any payment information when you sign up.
There was an offer along the way to see my credit score for $5, but I’m happily using the free CreditKarma service for that.
When it was all done, there was a big button labeled “View Credit Report”, which isn’t the same as “identity theft monitoring”, but for all of our sakes, I clicked it. Thankfully, there was a menu option (all the way at the top, very small font) for “Credit Monitoring”. Here’s what you actually get:
- Daily Monitoring of your Experian Credit Report
- Email Alerts of key changes to your Experian Credit Report
- Dedicated Representatives for Identity Theft Victims
- Experian Credit Report
I love e-mail alerts, so I’ll be keeping this on for a while, and I’ll report back on its usefulness.
Published or updated September 28, 2009. If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the RSS feed or receive daily emails. Follow @flexo on Twitter and visit our Facebook page for more updates.
Rank: Quarter
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
How nice! Wonder why it’s just those four states, though. If anyone from AAA Mid-Atlantic is reading this, this perk would go a long way towards keeping my business come renewal time again next June…
And if you are a premier member you automatically get $10,000 in identity theft insurance.
http://www.aaa-calif.com/members/id_theft.aspx?bcd=CAVU03
I’ve had the credit monitoring for about 9 months now, and its caught the few things that I would have expected (hard credit checks).
Yay CA is one of them :)