If you’ve ever signed up for a free credit report, you’ve likely been pitched on TransUnion Credit Monitoring. Like most people, I declined this option and opted instead to save my $11.95 a month. But after finding one too many mysterious charges on my credit card statement, I decided to give it a whirl. Plus, there’s a free 30-day trial available – so I really had nothing to lose.

First, a little bit about TransUnion’s TrueCredit Credit Monitoring.  Basically, TrueCredit gives you:

• 24 hour notification of suspicious changes to your credit report
• Immediate and unlimited access to your credit report and credit score
• Ability to “lock” your TransUnion credit report for added security
• Slick “Trend” breakdowns for your debt, savings, credit score and more
• Daily updates your TransUnion report and credit score once a day
• $25,000 Identity Theft Insurance
• A library of educational articles, worksheets and other resources

You can cancel your TrueCredit account within 30 days and you won’t owe a dime. Of course, you get to keep your credit score and report (if you printed it off), which is well worth the $12 anyway, seeing as you don’t get a credit score from AnnualCreditReport.com.

Sign up for your free TrueCredit Credit Monitoring 30-day trial now.

The signup process is extremely simple – after punching in your ID info, it’ll tell you if you already have an account and all you’ll have to do is log in.

Be sure to check the box to activate your 30-day trial

When you are placing your order, either as a new member or a returning customer, be sure to check the box that says “Check the box to start your 30-day risk-free trial, $11.95/month thereafter.” I can’t speak from experience, but I imagine that failing to check this box would forgo the trial and just skip to paid membership (not sure why anyone would want to do this). Also, decline the optional shipping box below. It costs $5.95 and all that paper makes Mother Earth all weepy and sad.

Check to begin your free trial, uncheck to opt out of hard copy.

On the next page, you’ll enter your credit card information (for verification purposes, they say). But as you’ll notice, they do say that they won’t charge you until your trial is up.

Again, make sure to leave the optional shipping box unchecked.

Opt out of hard copy and junk emial

Next, you’ll be graced with one of several affiliate offers. This one is saying I’ll get a $15.00 rebate for my TrueCredit purchase, which is a bit misleading. You do not have to accept this offer in order to get your free trial. The TrueCredit free trial is truly free – no strings attached. So go ahead and click that teeny tiny little “No thanks” link and move on.

"No thanks" to this offer

You’ll then be shown a receipt. Print if off or PDF it and then click through to your information.

Under the “your credit” tab you’ll see where you can view your credit reports, trending, credit alerts, and most excitingly, your credit score.

As you can see, you get your TrasnUnion credit score immediately. Don’t mean to brag, but looks like my credit score is rockin’ (750 is a good credit score).

I'm great!

If you’re like me and need even more positive reinforcement just to get through the day, there’s a little Venn diagram at the bottom, too. Looks like I’m right on the cleavage between “good” and “very good.” Nice.

The sweet spot.

As you can see, you can add your Experian and Equifax scores as well – for a price. The one that I might go ahead and grab is your Experian score. Unlike Equifax and TransUnion, which use the FICO scoring method, Experian uses VantageScore. It’s a different scale and is factored a bit differently as well.

Another feature that you might be interested in trying is called “TrueCredit Lock.” This, as explained in this screen shot, prevents others from looking at your TransUnion credit report and will “help stop ID thieves from obtaining credit in your name.”

Kinda cool

The idea is that whenever you apply for a credit card or mortgage, the lender will have to pull your credit report. And they can’t do that without you popping back on this site and unlocking your TransUnion account.

The rub is, though, that it doesn’t lock out your Equifax and Experian credit reports. You’ll have to go directly through them for a service like that.

It’s also important to note that there is a difference between TrueCredit Lock and the much advertised LifeLock. LifeLock works by submitting a “fraud alert” to the three credit reporting bureaus every 90 days, which is something you can do yourself for free and is a borderline abuse of the system. TrueCredit is just TransUnion exercising its right as a private institution to withhold information about you by your request.

All in all, I’d have to say that I was actually kind of impressed with TrueCredit. The trending features seemed very interesting – there were tools for tracking your debt-to-income ratio and the progression of your credit score over time. It kind of reminded me of the latest personal finance tools from the likes of Mint and Thrive. If you were on a plan to turn around your credit rating, this would be a pretty powerful tool – especially because it lets you get a new, updated report once every 24 hours. I will note that, in spite of this, I couldn’t find mention of my recent Lending Club loan, although Lending Club does say that they disclose information about your account to all three bureaus. It’s possible that my account is too new, though. The reason I cancelled is that after reviewing my report and score and finding it better than I expected, I decided that I don’t really need to monitor my report more than once a year, but of course, YMMV.

Have you signed up for the 30-day free trial from TrueCredit? Chime in with your experience with credit monitoring in the comments section below.

Related posts:

1. A Step-By-Step Guide to Getting Your (Actually) Free Credit Report without Accidentally Signing Up For Extras: Part One – TransUnion
2. Guide to Getting Your Free Credit Report from GoFreeCredit.com
3. Free Credit Reports – Post-FTC Crackdown
4. Getting Your (Actually) Free Credit Report from SmartCredit.com
5. A Step-By-Step Guide to Getting Your (Actually) Free Credit Report without Accidentally Signing Up For Extras: Part Three Equifax