Visa cardholders now have free access to smart credit repair and monitoring service Dovly Uplift

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With a potential recession next year threatening to tighten lending standards, building good credit and keeping it there is as important as ever. However, errors in your credit reports can hold you back, and they’re surprisingly common. A Consumer Reports survey from 2021 found that 34% of Americans found errors on their credit report.

There are plenty of credit monitoring services on the market with varying prices and advantages, but if you’re a Visa cardholder, you’re already eligible for free credit monitoring and improvement services with Dovly.

On Tuesday, smart credit services company Dovly announced an agreement with Visa. The agreement will provide Visa cardholders with Uplift, a smart credit improve service created by Dovly for Visa cardholders, free of charge. Dovly has previously a partner with Visa under their Small Business Hub. Already soft launched, Visa customers with a consumer credit, consumer debit, or prepaid card can go to Dovly Uplift’s site to check for eligibility. 

Users of Dovly Uplift get a monthly TransUnion credit report and VantageScore credit score. Dovly Uplift also includes basic credit monitoring, notifying consumers when there are any changes to their credit report or if their credit score drops 10 points or more. These can be done through their browser site or app.

Cardholders also get access to Dovly’s signature product — an algorithm that detects potential errors on their credit report and will dispute them on behalf of the consumer. Dovly will also track the progress of the dispute until you have an answer. “Let’s say you’re a victim of identity fraud, and you’ve selected 10 items,” says CEO and co-founder Nirit Rubenstein. “Our algorithm will look at those 10 items and determine what to dispute, when to dispute, how to dispute, the cadence, the frequency, the pairing of the items. All of that is taken into account.” 

Dovly Uplift is geared specifically toward helping cardholders with lower credit scores improve their credit. “The Credit Karmas of the world, they’re really focused on the upper echelon,” Rubenstein says. “We really want to focus on people that don’t have access.” She says that customers who come to Dovly with low scores often see higher-than-average credit score increases; the average credit boost of a customer using Dovly Maximizer, its paid service, is 56 points according to their website.

Dovly’s financial literacy knowledge center plays a large role in their goal, giving them access to credit-related financial advice. “We’re constantly giving our members tips that are specific to their credit goal,” Rubenstein says.

Cardholders who sign up for Dovly Uplift will have discounted access to Dovly’s paid services which include credit monitoring and disputes with all three of the major credit bureaus, not just TransUnion. The current discount for the monthly Dovly Maximizer is 50% off ($39.99 to $19.99 per month), which gives consumers three disputes per month and $1 million in identity theft insurance.

In broad strokes, credit monitoring describes the process of checking your credit reports consistently to see if there are any errors or inaccuracies on your credit reports. These could be as simple as a typo in your name or address or something more sinister, like a line of credit that you didn’t open, which can be a sign of identity theft. Left undisputed, identity theft can hurt your credit score and cost you thousands of dollars. 

While consumers can currently see their credit reports every week through the end of 2023, when that period ends, the Fair Credit Reporting Act only affords consumers three credit reports each year. While you can space these out every four months for light credit monitoring, it’s a good idea to employ some other form of credit monitoring service in the spaces between reports.