In the information age, your financial identity often boils down to a few notations in an array of computer data bases - and it's a good idea to check their accuracy every year or so.
An error in your credit record - because a creditor misreported information, a credit bureau mixed up your file with someone else's, or a thief used your credit card - can spike a loan application or cause you to be denied an apartment, a rental car or even a job.To guard against mistakes, some 1.3 million people have taken the extra step of paying a service called PrivacyGuard (800-374-8273) to keep watch over their digital persona. For $49.95 a year (or $5 a month in some offers), PrivacyGuard will streamline the task of getting your and your spouse's credit reports, driving records, Medical Information Bureau reports, and Social Security estimates of earnings and benefits.
Members get a triple-bureau credit report, which merges information from all three major credit bureaus, each of which may have different information on file. Two credit reports from each bureau would normally cost $8 apiece in most states, or $48 total. (Credit reports cost less in Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland and Vermont.
On top of that, you'd pay $5 to $8 for your driving record and $8 for each report from the Medical Information Bureau, a repository for information you've given on individual life and health insurance applications.
Continuing the service at $5 a month gets you quarterly credit-report update.