17 million veterans offered free credit monitoring

The theft of 26.5 million veteran records from a Veteran Affairs Department laptop in May made headlines around the world and brought significant attention to the issue of data theft.

But what happened to the veterans impacted by the theft? Not much. The VA sent a letter to the 17 million veterans who had their Social Security numbers on the laptop and set up a hotline. According to the Associated Press, these two steps have already cost the government $14 million.

Now the AP is reporting that 17 million veterans will be given free credit monitoring services as well. It doesn't sound like the type of monitoring program or length of service to be offer has been determined by the VA just yet. One thing is for certain, this will be one of the largest spikes in credit monitoring customers ever seen!

As our way to say "welcome to the world of credit monitoring," here our some tips for the 17 million veterans:

• Most credit monitoring programs send you updates by email. Make sure you add the company's email address to your safe list so the messages won't be spam filtered.
• Try to sign up for three bureau monitoring instead of single bureau monitoring. Single only tracks changes to one of your three credit reports.
• It can take about 30 days for credit changes to appear on your credit reports. Don't be surprised when you receive a new account warning a month after opening a credit card.
• Fraud alerts and file freezes can impact your ability to sign up for credit monitoring programs. You may need to go through extra identity verification steps when registering.
• Identity theft insurance is often bundled in with these monitoring programs. Be aware that this insurance doesn't usually cover "pre-existing conditions."
  
• The free credit reports that come with monitoring are often more important than the email alerts. Closely review your credit report each time it is offered.

Credit monitoring can be a great tool to help veterans guard against identity theft. However, I wish that the government had dedicated to offer veterans free credit report file freezes instead. These file freezes are currently only available in a handful of states and may become available nationwide in a limited fashion under new legislation.