Housekeeping for good credit

solidpro

I saw a news story the other day about someone discovering someone had taken out finance in their name via some sort of identity theft. Lots of advice was to somehow 'lock' your credit score from being checked without permission.

I don't really have the need to check my credit score - I have credit cards, they all get paid off in full, I don't have any loans, the worst thing I do is use an arranged overdraft a bit too much as a buffer. I'm aware of the three big ones - Transunion, Equifax and Experian. I tried the MSE credit club, which I appear to have already joined but when you login it won't let me leave the 'save and verify' my details page - seems pretty useless. The FAQ page doesn't work.

Does anyone have any advice for what are just sensible month-to-month things I should try and do to just ensure nobody is taking advantage one day by going through bins or whatever. We already protect most of our identity stuff by mostly not having anything posted to our house, having a secure property, shredding everything. But i'd like to know if something was happening when it happened, rather than find out 3 months later, if you know what I mean?

Mark_d

I use credit karma, clearscore and experian apps to keep an eye on my credit reports periodically.  The experian one only shows the score rather than the full report - but if that drops it means something has happened. So I would then investigate further with the other apps and possibly pay for one-off access to my experian report.

solidpro

Cool - do they cost you anything?

Mark_d

No.  Absolutely free

RAS

I have one account that is used for on-line purchases and payments. It is fed in cash only, so no links to my main accounts. And it can't be used for contactless. Reduces the amount that could be taken if comprised. 

But as you may guess, I'm not a big on-line shopper.

prettyandfluffy

Having experienced identity theft, I now keep my credit records locked to searches, Experian charge a fee for this.  I have no idea how the identity theft happened but they used my full name (which is an unusual one) and address plus an email address that wasn't mine so they could have got my details from the electoral roll or any number of publicly accessible records.  It was a headache when it happened.

Nasqueron

Experian have the credit lock option but it's only for paid customers

Just whack alerts on, anything about a credit agreement being added you should flag and check them weekly