Few Canadians stay up to date on their credit score. Even fewer understand how their credit score is calculated and what they can do to fix or improve it.
It’s mostly because your credit score becomes an issue only when you are applying for a personal loan, auto loan, mortgage, or a new credit card. And by then, it’s usually too late to improve it and get a better deal.
There are two major credit bureaus in the country, Equifax and TransUnion. Both of them must give you one free credit report a year if you ask for it.
But that doesn’t help you if you want to keep live track of your credit file and monitor all credit activities and how they are affecting your credit score. For that, there are services like Credit Verify.
The Canadian Bankers Association (CBA) stated credit card fraud reached $800 million in 2017.
Credit Monitoring
Credit Verify provides credit score reports and credit monitoring for Canadians.
Pros
- Offers a 7-day trial for just $1 dollar.
- Daily credit monitoring service.
- The credit score simulator is legit and reliable.
Cons
- Costly service
- Customer service rated poor
- Poor Trustpilot rating.
- Monthly $25 reward does not provide real value
- Poor reviews from readers of this site
What is Credit Verify?
Credit Verify is a credit monitoring service that operates under TransUnion, one of the two major credit bureaus operating in the country. It’s different from a credit bureau that actually keeps track of all your credit activities.
Credit Verify allows you to monitor your credit score, get daily updates, and alert you if any activity is affecting your credit score. This comes in handy if you become a victim of credit card fraud.
The service does that by making soft credit inquiries. A soft credit inquiry doesn’t show up on your record and doesn’t impact your credit score.
In contrast, a hard credit inquiry that is made by a lender, like when you apply for a new credit card or a personal loan, becomes part of your credit history. It usually harms your credit score, especially if you have triggered a lot of hard inquiries.
Live monitoring of your credit activity is especially valuable for people who are trying to improve their credit score and people who frequently become victims of credit fraud.
The latter is becoming more and more common. Evidence of that is the number of accounts that reported at least one credit card fraud case has increased by 71% in 2020.
For people who exercise a rigid financial discipline and make good use of the free credit score checks provided by credit bureaus and other services like Borrowell.
Credit Verify also offers financial advice and actionable strategies to control and improve your credit score. The simulator it offers is also a powerful tool to check and see how certain actions (like paying off your credit cards early and staying within 20% of your credit limit) can impact your credit score.
Credit Verify Products
Two significant Credit Verify products are live monitoring and a real-time credit score simulator. Both of these services are part of the monthly paid subscription to creditverify.ca, and you don’t have to pay anything extra.
Credit Score Monitoring
The core product of Credit Verify is live credit monitoring. You can access your current credit score within a few minutes. You can even set alerts to inform you whenever any credit activity takes place, or your credit score changes.
Real-time Credit Score Simulator
Many free and paid simulators are available online that offer a similar service. But the company claims that it offers a simulator that will provide you with the most realistic results since the simulator is built and integrated with a credit bureau (TransUnion).
This allows members of Credit Verify to run different scenarios and see how they might impact their credit scores. I haven’t been able to verify exactly how accurate this simulator is.
Other services
Creditverify.ca also offers a few more services to its premium members. Mostly, these services revolve around techniques and guidance on how to improve your credit score.
Credit Verify Cost and Fees
Creditverify.ca offers a free credit score and charges just $1 for the credit report. At the time of subscription, the service offers you a 7-day grace period, in which you can test its features i.e., live monitoring and simulator. If you want to continue with the service, you have to pay $29.95 per month.
How to Register With Credit Verify
In the bottom half of the landing page of Credit Verify, you will find a yellow “Sign Up Now” button. Pressing that will redirect you to another page where you will begin the registration process.
- The first step is general contact information. You have to fill that in to proceed to the next step.
- After that, you will have to fill out further details, including your credit card number.
- The terms and privacy services have a different “fee” on it.
But that’s probably due to Credit Verify’s own service and features fee, on top of the fees that have to be paid to TransUnion and Equifax for live credit monitoring.
- Once you are through this process, you can log in and start reviewing your credit report and credit score live.
Is Credit Verify Legit and Safe to Use?
Its legitimacy is a bit of a slippery slope. I’ve heard from some readers who have had some negative experiences with Credit Verify and problems trying to cancel the service.
While Credit Verify claims to be “powered by” TransUnion, the bureau itself doesn’t recognize or mention creditverify.ca’s existence or legitimacy anywhere.
The website was launched in 2018 by California-based LLC, Credique – A company that isn’t accredited by Better Business Bureau (BBB) and has a single, one-star review.
Creditverify.ca has a 2.5 out of 5-star rating on Trustpilot, but there are only a few ratings so it’s difficult to make a judgment based on these alone.
And even that number is propped up on one 5-star review. The rest of the seven reviews are two-star (2 reviews) or one-star (5 reviews).
I would recommend using this service very prudently and after doing your own due diligence about its legitimacy. And after you have exhausted all other credit tracking options.
Credit Verify Alternatives and Competitors
The two major competitors for Credit Verify are the bureaus themselves. Both offer credit monitoring services: Equifax Complete Premier by Equifax Canada and TransUnion’s membership program. Both are offered at $19.95 per month and come with up to $50,000 in identity theft insurance.
Borrowell is another credit monitoring service (powered by Equifax), and it offers a free credit score. It doesn’t offer live monitoring but offers free monthly reports and tips on how to fix your credit score.
It’s accredited by BBB and has much better ratings than Credit Verify.
You can also get one free detailed credit report every year from both Equifax and TransUnion.
You Should Use Credit Verify If:
- You need live updates on your credit score.
- You like to use their simulator to find ways to improve your credit.
- You are unable to find better alternates.
Don’t Use Credit Verify if:
- You keep your credit in check any other way.
- Have access to better services.
- Directly subscribed to the monitoring services provided by bureaus.
Conclusion
Credit monitoring is a very important service and beneficial for millions of Canadians. But Credit Verify might not be the best tool for the job and has questionable reviews.
You might want to look into other tools to monitor and other ways to fix your credit before considering Credit Verify.
I recommend you check out Borrowell instead to get free credit scores and monitoring.
I signed up to get a Pay day loan a long time ago, i never even got the loan, but somehow was signed up with these guys. I have called 3 times to cancel, each time, getting a cancelation confirmation email and yet they have still taken $90 over the last month alone. They keep offering me a 50% refund. I want 100%, it was not authorized to take this money. They told me there is nothing anyone else there can do. I have proof of the cancelations and proof of the money coming out.