How does free credit monitoring work?

When you sign up for Credit Karma’s free credit monitoring service, you’ll receive notifications when important changes show up on your credit reports.

These notifications can help alert you to suspicious or fraudulent activity you may not have otherwise caught, such as new hard inquiries made without your permission or new accounts you didn’t open.

Which credit bureaus does Credit Karma monitor?

Credit Karma monitors your credit reports from Equifax and TransUnion, two of the three major consumer credit bureaus (Experian is the third). As a Credit Karma member, you can also see your free credit reports and free credit scores from Equifax and TransUnion.

A credit bureau is a company that collects and stores information about you and your financial accounts and credit history, and then uses this information to generate your credit reports. While your credit reports with each bureau should contain similar information, there are a number of reasons why you may receive credit monitoring notifications for one bureau and not another.

Lenders may send information about your credit accounts to one, two or all three consumer credit bureaus, and credit bureaus can collect information from additional sources, such as certain public records. There’s also the possibility that your lenders report to different bureaus at different times. With all the information that flows into a typical credit report, it’s normal to see some minor differences between reports.

Not all of these differences are errors or signs that you’re the victim of fraud. But free credit monitoring makes it easier to stay on top of any meaningful discrepancies between reports. And if you do think a credit bureau has made a legitimate mistake (it happens from time to time), Credit Karma can help you dispute those errors on Equifax’s website or directly with TransUnion. We’ll explain how to do so later in this article.

How do you receive credit monitoring alerts?

Once you’ve enabled free credit monitoring, Credit Karma will monitor your credit reports from Equifax and TransUnion on a regular basis. We’ll send you an alert or notification letting you know about any key changes, such as a new hard inquiry or a new credit card added to your Equifax or TransUnion report.

If you’ve enabled push notifications, you may get a push notification alerting you to an important change. You may also receive an email notification prompting you to log into your Credit Karma account for further details.

What types of errors can credit monitoring catch?

The types of alerts and notifications you receive may depend on your personal credit activity. Again, not every alert implies an error, but the types of errors credit monitoring can help you spot may include …

• Incorrect personal information, including mistakes with your name and address history
• Payments reported that you didn’t actually make
• Hard inquiries from lenders, credit card issuers and other financial institutions you don’t recognize
• New accounts — such as newly opened credit cards — added to your credit reports