Countrywide Bank and Free Credit Monitoring Offer

Don't you just love when you get those letters from your financial institution letting you know that your identity may be at risk because: they lost your info/an employee walked off with it/tapes are missing/etc.? Jeesh.

I realize that as long as there are people in the world there will be scammers and those who will be scammed by them. And as long as we are putting all our money in one spot, those are the places people will look for it. Still, I can't help but think that if I thought of all this, why haven't the lenders?

Last week I got a letter from Countrywide letting me know that because my data might be in the hands of bad, bad men they were going to offer me free credit monitoring for two years.

So, I took them up on it. It has been awhile since I got to peruse my credit report. Plus with this free monitoring, I will have two years of someone is helping me keep an eye on my credit. They'll let me know if something odd pops up. Frankly, I would rather know that my data was safe and secure, but if this is result of Countrywide's neglect, well, let's just say I find it mollifying.

I am very happy with my credit score number. I'm not going to post it, but let's just say I'm in the "Excellent" range. I have a personal goal to see if I can bump it up a few more points in the next year or so. One of the main reasons my score is high is because I have a good payment history. For that I can thank online banking. Ever since my credit union added this service I have been loving it! I set up my bills to be paid far in advance and then I can forget about them, knowing it is all taken care of. On top of that, I save money by not buying stamps or checks and since it uses less paper, so I'm being more environmentally kind. I wouldn't give up online banking for anything...

which of course leads me right back to where I started. As long as we keep putting all our money in one place...

sigh.

Photo by: waltarrrr