Identity theft can expose consumers to multiple types of financial risks, including fraud. A less known fact is that it can also influence personal credit scores.
ScoresMatter, the Atlanta, Georgia headquartered consumer credit monitoring specialist, faced a significant product limitation that was impacting customer trust and satisfaction.
Confused and distressed customers were frequently contacting the business after discovering that their credit scores had mysteriously dropped or there were unfamiliar lines of credit on their reports. In these cases, ScoresMatter could show customers what had happened to their credit. However, they couldn’t explain how it had happened or the source of the compromise.
This issue became personal. One of ScoresMatter’s founding partners saw his credit score suddenly drop by 200 points having fallen victim to identity theft. The recovery process took several stressful months, which brought home a critical market need – consumers needed to understand how their personal information was compromised, and not just be left to deal with the downstream consequences.
The solution: Cybercheck’s unrivaled breadth, depth and freshness of data
To address this need, ScoresMatter set to look for a partner that could provide comprehensive dark web monitoring across multiple countries, while delivering actionable intelligence that would help customers understand their risk exposure.
The choice fell on Cybercheck owing to the comprehensiveness and timeliness of its dataset.
“I personally have five things that have ever been found, according to my bank in the US,” says Casey Kermes, ScoresMatter’s Senior Director of Product and Operations. “And according to [Cybercheck], there is 180 times that my email address has been stolen, which is terrifying. So, we know that’s true for all our other customers too — the breadth and quality of that data is just more extensive across the entire world for everyone.”
ScoresMatter’s consumer credit monitoring platform has around 1 million lifetime users across the US, UK, Poland and Spain. The integration of Cybercheck’s data into their ScoresMatter Privacy Plus allows them to send up to 10,000 customer alerts per day, or 2–4 times more than their rivals. It also means ScoresMatter can offer their customers guidance and support through the distressing process of recovering from compromised data.
About ScoresMatter: Helping consumers around the world to manage and protect their credit ratings
ScoresMatter provides comprehensive credit reports, scores, credit simulators, debt monitoring, and privacy protection services directly to individual consumers. Founded by credit industry veterans, ScoresMatter has expanded beyond traditional credit monitoring to become a comprehensive identity protection platform. Recently, they have developed standalone privacy products to address the growing consumer demand for data breach awareness and protection.
The partnership with Cybercheck has enabled ScoresMatter to develop their Privacy Plus service, which sits alongside their credit monitoring services.
Privacy Plus users can register multiple email addresses and phone numbers, which the solution queries against Cybercheck’s database daily. The platform displays compromised credentials in an intuitive dashboard. This shows the customer’s email addresses, when breaches were discovered, the sources of the breaches, and any associated compromised fields. If Privacy Plus finds any newly compromised data, it sends an immediate alert to the customer.
The partnership with Cybercheck has transformed ScoresMatter’s value proposition and customer engagement. A continuous stream of actionable intelligence has positioned ScoresMatter as a proactive guardian for their customers, rather than a reactive reporter.
Enhanced customer engagement
When ScoresMatter tested removing the dark web risk score from onboarding emails, they observed measurable declines in Day 1 customer logins. The risk score drives immediate action. Typically, customers go on an emotional journey that starts from fear, when they discover they’re exposed. The tool allows them to change their passwords and work with their service providers to secure their accounts, regaining control.
Total reliability
The partnership has achieved 100% technical reliability across five product implementations over a three-year period, with zero API downtime or credential failures. This reliability has allowed ScoresMatter to build their Privacy Plus offering into a potential standalone product for US market expansion, unbundled from credit monitoring services to reach price-conscious consumers seeking pure identity protection.
“I’ve been here three years”, notes Casey, “and I don’t think we’ve ever had an API go down or credentials fail. It constantly does what it’s supposed to do and we haven’t had issues. We’ve built it into five different brands, and I don’t think we’ve ever had an issue.”
Looking ahead: New products and expansion into new markets
ScoresMatter envision a significant expansion of their Cybercheck partnership across multiple dimensions. The company is prioritizing deeper US market penetration while extending coverage throughout Europe, with potential expansion into South American markets.
They’re developing a standalone version of Privacy Plus that’s decoupled from credit monitoring. This will offer dark web monitoring at an affordable price to privacy-conscious consumers who may not need comprehensive credit services.
“We’d love to get into more markets, whether that’s more extensive in Europe, more extensive in the US,” says Casey. “We definitely want to penetrate the US a lot more than we are today.”
Beyond geographic expansion, ScoresMatter is exploring how Cybercheck’s evolving database and intelligence capabilities can be incorporated into new consumer-facing features. Identity threats continue to evolve, particularly with AI-enabled phishing scams and social engineering attacks using compromised personal data.
ScoresMatter see their partnership with Cybercheck as essential to staying ahead of emerging threats, and foundational to their long-term identity protection strategy.
As Casey has found, “Cybercheck are extremely reliable and extremely competent at what they do. Extremely good at deep data, really good data that’s always reliable and always there.”
