We've all been there before - we get turned down for something or other and want to see our credit report to find out why. Maybe it's our faults - maybe not. If it's my fault, fine. I can try to fix whatever needs fixed. If it's not my fault, then I can figure out the steps I need to take in order to get it fixed. In a lot of cases people get cases and credits mishandled by companies and this ends up going on your record. And in other small cases people actually go through major problems such as identity theft, hackers hacking their records or thieves.

Most of the time we wouldn't even know if something like this has happened or not, unless we check it out with credit monitoring. Sometimes these sites can cost hundreds of dollars, but if you look around a little bit like I did - chances are you can find a site that will offer this to you by way of a low monthly fee. I even found a site that allowed you to have a 7 day free trial to see if you liked the program or not. If you do - great. You can check your credit reports any time you want and you will even be sent alerts when there is a change to your account.

It alerts you by e-mail when potentially fraudulent items, or other critical changes, have been made to your credit report (like the opening of a fraudulent credit card). These e-mails will be sent to you daily when or if any changes occur. If no activity takes place, an e-mail will be sent every 30 days with an "all-clear" note. Over all, the free trial is a fantastic way to try out the site, see if you like it, or even better - see if it catches anything that is going on with your credit. If you don't like the program (which I don't know why you wouldn't) you can just as easily cancel the membership and that's it.

You won't get charged again and you won't get charged an extra fee for canceling. It's just a really nice way to keep yourself and your credit under a watchful eye. Things do happen - so it's best to keep yourself safe rather than sorry in the end. Credit Monitoring does not affect your credit or credit score like a lot of people think it does. I think the credit bureaus like to scare us with this because, then we won't check and we won't see any discrepancies! By the way - another cool thing about these free credit score websites is that they have a ton of information on them regrading how this works, why it works and what your rights are as a consumer. Over all it's a very educational way to understand more about credit bureaus and scores and how to get "mishandled" inaccuracies taken off your account - and yes it is possible!