Credit Sesame Identity Theft Protection

With all of the options available, it can be hard to compare identity theft protection providers and find the right one for you. Even if you read all of the guides to identity theft protection, figuring out the right choice and understanding each provider’s price structure is pretty tricky. So, let’s take things one step at a time.

We know that price is a huge deciding factor when picking out a provider, and it helps to zero in on one provider at a time. That’s why today we’re focusing on Credit Sesame’s pricing. We’ll talk about their free and paid subscriptions, how its services compare to others in the market, and whether or not it’s worth the money.

Free features

Credit Sesame Subscription Options

Credit Sesame offers a wide variety of finance- and credit-related products, but our sole focus today is on its credit monitoring service. Credit monitoring is an important part of identity theft prevention, and Credit Sesame offers four products to choose from.

The first option is free, but the three others require a monthly subscription. No matter which subscription you go with, though, you’ll be covered by identity theft insurance.

There is a pretty big jump between spending $0 a month to spending $9.95 or $19.95 a month, so let’s talk a little bit about the difference between the services.

The $19.95 option is by far the best bang for your buck if you’re looking for a comprehensive credit and identity fraud monitoring program. While it is a little pricey compared to the other plans, when we tested it out, we discovered that the ability to scour the dark web, public records, and the uses of our Social Security Numbers would be invaluable if our identities or credit card numbers were stolen.

Now, if you don’t need identity monitoring that is that comprehensive, the Pro Credit plan, for $15.95 a month, is a perfect middle ground. It monitors all three credit bureaus, plus, it provides 24/7 live assistance in case of identity theft. But it doesn’t monitor the dark web, public records, and Social Security numbers.

Going down further, there’s the Advanced Credit plan for $9.95 per month. Like the other two plans, it includes daily credit score updates from TransUnion, monthly credit score updates from all three bureaus, and monthly full credit reports from the same. The main distinction between this and the Pro Credit plan is that it doesn’t include alerts. You’ll have to check and monitor your credit score updates and credit reports, and $9.95 per month seems a bit steep for that.

Lastly, we have the free plan, which provides monthly credit score updates from TransUnion and identity theft insurance but nothing else. We suggest starting with this if you want to get a feel of the service, but it shouldn’t be your permanent credit monitoring solution. But, if you don’t have any other credit monitoring tools, the insurance that Credit Sesame gives you alone is well worth going through the sign up process.

For a deeper dive on the features available, check out our Credit Sesame review.

Credit Sesame’s Pricing- How Does It Compare?

Overall, Credit Sesame’s pricing is right around the industry standard for credit and identification monitoring and protection. Credit Karma, a main competitor in the credit space, only has a free option, but it does not have as comprehensive identity monitoring, and more importantly, does not have identity theft reimbursement or insurance. Higher-end subscriptions from LifeLock range from $8.99 to $25.99 a month. Other plans from Identity Guard offer larger and more variable subscription packages, ranging from $8.99 to $24.99 a month for individuals or $14.99 to $34.99 a month for families. If you want both identity theft protection and credit monitoring, take a look at our list of the best identity theft protection services with credit reporting.

How Does Credit Sesame Protect You?

We always say, the best offense is a good defense. The only way to combat every attempt on your identity or credit is to effectively monitor all points of potential access. So, how does Credit Sesame line up against competitors? Do they cover all points? Here’s what’s covered by the most comprehensive Platinum Protection plan, which encompasses all the other plans:

• Credit Report and Credit Score Monitoring: All plans have at least one element of credit report and score monitoring, but the free version only covers one credit bureau. To get a full picture of your credit, we recommend checking in more than one credit bureau.
• ID Theft Insurance Reimbursement: All paid plans come with identity theft insurance with a maximum reimbursement up to $1,000,000. Even though the free plan only comes with $50,000 in coverage, we still think that’s a steal. But, it’s not as much coverage as you’d get with one of the best identity theft restoration services on the market.
• Change of address monitoring: If someone aside from ourselves tries to change our address through USPS, we’d get alerted.
• 24/7 Access to Live Experts for Credit and Lost Wallet Issues: This gave us access to a hotline where Credit Sesame experts walked us step by step through recovering our identity or making all the necessary calls to replace everything in our wallet. Unfortunately, this service is only available to account owners who pay upwards of $15.95 per month. That makes accessing customer service on Credit Sesame slightly more difficult than their competitors for other subscribers.
• Public records monitoring: Credit Sesame monitored all public records and made sure that our names weren’t being used. If they were, they’d let us know immediately.
• Social security number monitoring: Credit Sesame looked for our Social Security numbers with different aliases, names, and addresses to make sure no one was using our SSNs.
• Payday loans monitoring: If someone tried to open a payday loan in our names, we’d be alerted. This could both save us thousands of dollars and protect our credit scores.
• Sex offender monitoring: We want to stay out of sex offender registries, so Credit Sesame makes sure that our names are rightfully excluded.
• Comprehensive Monitoring of Public and Private Information Usage: Although we will have to spring for the most expensive package to get any of Credit Sesame’s identity monitoring, they do provide a comprehensive service. Their Platinum Protection plan covers off on some of the biggest identity theft hotspots, including a new hotspot, the dark web.1 We take dark web monitoring seriously which is why we made an entire roundup dedicated to the best identity theft protection with dark web monitoring.

Our Favorite Features

Whenever we get a chance to use a new ID protection resource, there are always a few key features that jump out at us. In the case of Credit Sesame there were three unique features that make their service stand out from the competition.

• 24/7 Live Expert Access: According to the Federal Trade Commission, we could be liable for $50 to $500 of unauthorized charges on our debit card. That’s why when we saw a few mysterious charges on our debit card, the first thing we did was call Credit Sesame. Having the expert hotline at Credit Sesame in our corner helped us track the fraudulent usage, contact our bank, and remedy the situation in less time than it would’ve taken us to find the bank’s phone number. Similarly, if our identities were stolen, we wouldn’t have known where to start; it’s a confusing process that involves contacting both private and public institutions. All in all, Credit Sesame made the whole process much easier.
• Identity Theft Insurance Coverage: Credit Sesame would reimburse us for expenses and legal costs incurred in the event of identity theft. Although this amount of money, $1,000,000, is an industry standard, the expense reimbursement parameters were expansive. From fraud, theft, forgery to stolen identities, Credit Sesame had us covered, and not only when we were paying for a plan, but even when we were trying out the free subscription.
• Lost Wallet Restoration: As a key aspect of Credit Sesame’s Platinum Protection plan, they provided a service that would have covered us almost completely if we lost our wallets. In that stressful situation, they would have made all necessary calls to reissue our IDs, credit cards, drivers licenses, and even passports!

How Does Credit Sesame’s Free Service Stack Up?

When we tried Credit Sesame’s free service, we were slightly disappointed to discover that it only searches one credit bureau on a monthly rolling basis. While this is a nice feature that can help us get a foothold on improving our credit score, we found that it didn’t go far enough to protect us. First and foremost, Credit Sesame is a credit monitoring company, so when we used the free service, we didn’t get any of their identity protection services. In order to get access to those we had to upgrade to the $19.95 Platinum Protection package.

Another minor gripe we have about the user experience with the free service is the heavy advertising. We get that Credit Sesame is doing us a favor with this free plan, but it gets a bit annoying over time (another reason why you should consider getting a paid plan). For instance, before letting us view our credit information, the dashboard showed us numerous links to credit cards that our credit history would qualify us for.

Now, on the bright side, Credit Sesame’s free service did give us a $1,000,000 insurance package against monetary losses in the event of identity theft. We don’t know any other free service that offers this, so Credit Sesame did a good job here.

If you’re not sure Credit Sesame’s free service is enough coverage for you, but you’re not ready to pay in full yet, consider pivoting to a service with a free trial. That way, you can take it out for a test drive before making a final decision. With Experian, for example, you can get a generous 30-day free trial when you sign up for an Experian IdentityWorks plan. Or, try a plan from IdentityForce, which offers a 14-day free trial.

How To Cancel Credit Sesame

Thankfully, we didn’t have to jump through too many hoops to cancel Credit Sesame. There are two cancelation models based on the packages users have from Credit Sesame. For free Credit Sesame users like us in the beginning, canceling was incredibly easy; all we needed to do was visit their Termination Page, fill out the requisite information and our account was terminated.

After we upgraded to the Premium Credit Sesame package, the cancellation process was slightly more complicated. First, we needed to discontinue our paid subscription before closing the Credit Sesame account in general. To do that, we sent a message to their Member Success team to request termination of our subscription. They got back to us fairly quickly and let us know that after the current billing cycle, we would no longer be charged. Of course, they tried to sell us on a lower tier subscription, but we just said no and they respected that. Then we needed to go back and visit their Termination Page to fill out the requisite information and finally our account was terminated.

Recap

Overall, Credit Sesame is a great service, whose free subscription allows users to give it a try with some serious perks, but to get the best value from the service, you have to be willing to pay. If all you need is a monthly check to get a general idea of how your credit is doing, Credit Sesame might just be the perfect option for you. You can even use it to get a free credit report. Anything beyond that will require spending right around the industry standard for credit and ID monitoring on a monthly basis.

The best option for a completely comprehensive identity protection and credit monitoring program will cost $19.95 a month. First and foremost, Credit Sesame is a credit tracking company, so it’s not a huge surprise that their identification protections are for the highest level of premium service only. Where their lower spend subscriptions lack in identity protection, they do make up in helping us recoup losses in the event of a lost wallet or identity theft.