Credit Sesame Identity Theft Review

What Does Credit Sesame Protect?

Credit Sesame offers four tiers of identity theft protection solutions. Its free credit monitoring is available to anyone who creates a free Credit Sesame account. Simply log into your account and activate credit monitoring. This will notify you of unusual activity on your TransUnion credit report and you'll get a monthly credit score update based on your TransUnion credit report. The free plan also includes $50,000 in identity theft insurance to cover some of your expenses if your identity is stolen and a Credit Sesame agent to walk you through the process of restoring your identity. While there are some significant gaps in this plan, including no monitoring of your Equifax or Experian credit reports, it's still an excellent deal when you consider that you don't even have to enter a credit card to sign up.

Those who want more comprehensive protection can upgrade to one of Credit Sesame's three paid plans. The Advanced Credit Plan is the next step up and includes monthly credit scores and reports from Equifax and Experian and daily credit report and score updates from TransUnion. But if you want full credit monitoring, you have to upgrade to the Pro Credit Plan, which includes three-bureau credit monitoring, reports and scores and 24/7 access to Credit Sesame specialists who can help you correct errors in your credit report and restore your stolen identity.

Credit Sesame's most comprehensive identity theft solution is the Platinum Protection plan. This includes all of the things in the Pro Credit Plan, plus Social Security Number, public records and black market website monitoring. The company also assists Platinum members if their wallet is lost or stolen and they need help canceling and reissuing credit cards, driver's licenses and other personal documents. All paid plans also include $1 million in identity theft insurance.

This is pretty comprehensive coverage for an individual and should suit most people, but unfortunately, Credit Sesame doesn't enable you to add a spouse or child's information for those interested in monitoring the identities of their entire family. It also doesn't have the tools to alert you to bank account takeovers, though its credit monitoring services should prevent identity thieves from opening new accounts in your name.

Price

Credit Sesame's free identity theft protection service is actually free. Unlike some other companies who require you to input your credit card and then begin charging you after the trial period is up, you won't ever pay a cent for Credit Sesame's free credit monitoring. You don't even have to enter your credit card.

Its paid services charge monthly fees. The Advanced Credit plan is $9.95 per month. The Pro Credit plan is $15.95/month and the Platinum Protection plan is $19.95 per month. These are not out of line with many of its competitors, though the Advanced Plan is rather expensive for single-bureau credit monitoring. If you decide to upgrade to paid identity theft protection from Credit Sesame, you should go with the Pro Credit or Platinum Protection plans as they provide more comprehensive monitoring services.

Customer Service

Credit Sesame is accredited with the Better Business Bureau and maintains an A+ rating with the organization, indicating that it's prompt in addressing customer complaints and provides quality service.

The company has also receive an 8.2 from over 2,000 people on TrustPilot. While most of the reviews are focused on the company's credit reporting products, the overall sentiment is that the company is helpful and reliable and the site is simple to navigate and understand.

Bottom Line

While Credit Sesame's identity theft protection solutions are not quite as strong as companies that focus solely on identity theft protection, they do a good job of covering the basics and their free credit monitoring is a nice option for those who want to test out identity theft monitoring without getting roped into a subscription.

Individuals interested in credit, Social Security, public records and black market website monitoring should consider signing up for Credit Sesame to see what it has to offer.