It's also a modern-day perk and everyone's worst nightmare: You're at the store when your phone rings, notifying you of an unusual charge on your credit card. He's glad to know his credit card company is taking care of him, but now he has to deal with the anomaly. Was it you or was your identity stolen? And is this the first time an unusual charge has appeared on your card? Time to do some detective work. You may also need to dispute your credit report.
One way to reduce the chances of a credit problem is to keep a close eye on your credit score using one of the many mobile credit apps available today. But how do you know which ones work and which ones will leave you nagging?
We've done the research and these four apps stand out from the rest.
Be wise
You may have seen the ads recently: Capital One is promoting the fact that it now offers a free credit score to anyone through its CreditWise program. Unlike many credit card companies that only provide credit scores to their customers, as recommended by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Capital One concluded that their program was a valuable promotional tool for everyone. You can get your score online or through apps available for iOS and Android.
Be sensible
It's a great and versatile tool for those who want to see all their financial data in one place.
Build your karma
Another popular credit score app available for iOS and Android is Credit Karma. The app is free and dwarfs many others because it displays credit scores from 2 of the top 3 score providers and updates them weekly. Most other programs will only show you one of these scores while having access to two different scoring systems will allow you to better determine if any of your reports are flawed.
Credit Karma will also show you potentially beneficial credit card offers and provide basic interpretations of your credit score, ranking it using a standard "poor to excellent" scale.
Open to knowledge
Finally, very similar to Credit Karma is Credit Sesame, another app that offers a non-FICO credit score. It currently uses data from TransUnion and your credit score is updated monthly, so it's not as frequent as it is with Credit Karma. It's worth noting that lenders rely on the FICO score to determine your eligibility for a loan or credit card, but your Credit Sesame score will give you a very close ballpark range to your FICO score.
Knowing your credit score is an essential part of building your financial reputation, so it pays to keep at least one of these apps handy. By monitoring your credit score, you can stay one step ahead of scammers who want to crash your numbers with unauthorized purchases.
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