I'm a huge fan of BillGuard and how great it is at monitoring charges across all debit and credit cards. Recently the service went completely free for an unlimited number of cards, which gives no one an excuse not to keep a tight fist on their finances, and fraud protection.
For those not already familiar with BillGuard, it's a service that links up to all your credit and bank card providers and constantly monitors what's going in and out. It's very good at finding grey charges and extra fees that you never knew you were being charged. I personally saved quite a lot of money when I realized one of my cards had me enrolled in something I never agreed to.
Beyond monitoring and tracking, BillGuard also offers spending analytics so you see exactly where your money is going. Trying to cut back? Check the analytics section and see what types of items you spend the most money on in a single glance.
A newer feature of BillGuard is the savings portion which smartly chooses merchants around you that have deals based on where you most frequently shop. Whether it's a discount or sales that may apply to you, it's a neat feature that could occasionally save you a few bucks.
Previously BillGuard only allowed you to monitor two credit cards of free. If you wanted to monitor more you'd have to pay $10 as an in-app purchase. Now you can track as many cards as you'd like for free.
Given recent security breaches, consumers are on edge about what's happening with their money. While credit monitoring is a great service, BillGuard is crowdsourced and monitors all transactions, not just the overall picture. That means you get up to date information as it happens, not just incremental updates like credit monitoring provides. That increases your chances of finding fraudulent charges faster.
If you haven't tried BillGuard in the past, it's a great time to check it out. Let us know what you think of it in the comments! And if you happen to find any unauthorized charges, let us know that too!
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Reader comments
BillGuard updates with unlimited, totally free, credit card monitoring
BillGuard is one of the BEST financial apps out there... I love your reviews Ally!
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Allyson can you comment on the security of this app?
If they have access to account information what type of security is in place?
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Hey, this article has info. on app's security: http://help.billguard.com/customer/portal/articles/208640-security-faq
BillGuard has bank-level security, it's as secure as logging in your card's online site.
I use Check which used to be PageOnce Assistant...is BillGuard better? If so in what way??
Check seems to tie into most bills and biller, in addition to Credit, Debit and Bank Accounts, and shows all current bills and activity. Billguard just ties into Credit, Debit and Bank Accounts, and appears to flag new transactions. Once you've confirmed the transaction as ok (meaning it was you that made it), it doesn't show it again.
Check seems to show you everything and current status, almost as a point in time snapshot of where all your accounts and bills are. Billguard to me is appears focus on flagging new transactions on your Credit, Debit and Bank accounts as they come in, to alert you to anything that you might not have made yourself.
I like Billguard (just set it up) to keep tabs on my new charges, but it won't be replacing Check for me, which I also use to see bills and current and future transactions.
Thank you kmichalec...that was helpful. I am going to stay with Check. I like linking all my accounts. I also use Quicken 2014 but I don't sync my accounts with it...I just use it to enter receipts on the go, then it syncs to the cloud (not with my actual banks/credit card companies). Then when I get home I do a mobile sync from the desktop version and boom, all transactions show up.
Why is your BillGuard app look so much more neat than mine? :/
nvm found it !
American only still?
No update for me yet :(
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BillGuard will "protect your card from unwanted charges". First of all - no it won't. It may tell you after the fact. And second - who gives a crap? I'm not going to sit around worrying about fraudulent charges on my credit cards. If someone charges something fraudulently on my card I don't pay anything. It's happened a number of times in my life. I have had zero loss. Hopefully this app does more than protects you from unwanted charges. Because you ARE ALREADY protected from unwanted charges. Stupid.
Fred, you *will* pay if neither your bank (in pre-transaction posting) nor you (post-transaction posting) finds the fraudulent charge. The majority of reported fraud comes from cardholder reports, but most of us don't monitor for that so well. BillGuard is about solving that problem - it's the world's only post-transaction monitoring service, with both active alerts when a charge requires your attention, and an easy UI to verify/flag charges on your own.
I'm definitely going to try out BillGuard, thanks for the for the review! I'm also using Credit Sesame for credit monitoring, and to improve my credit score.
I've been looking for a finance app and after reading this I thought I'd give Billguard a try. 24 hours later the account has been deleted as it took that amount of time to get my first account added and even then the app just was continually freezing on the phone. When I'm trusting someone with sensitive information this bumpy start didn't install any confidence in me so I bailed.