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Using LIFELOCK to monitor ID theft, etc.....comments; good or bad?

catch22catch22
edited July 2011 in Off-Topic
Morn'in,

Curious as to whether you or those you may know have a LIFELOCK account and as to its perceived value, true value and/or any concerns or drawbacks about having such an account to monitor potential invasions of accounts.

I ask, as I am aware of numerous other similar service/protection plans; and wonder whether LifeLock is any different. We have a free membership account offer via our affiliation with an unrelated organization.

Thank you in advance for your time and effort.
Regards,
Catch

Comments

  • InvestorInvestor
    edited July 2011
    If you place a credit freeze into your file (all 3 credit history reporting bureaus) you can basically do the same as life lock. Actually credit freeze much better since life lock only places fraud alerts which is weaker and could be ignored and has to be repeated every so often. If you need new credit, you need to call an thaw your credit history for the bureau that will be used and freeze again afterwards. The thawing only takes about 10-15 mins so it is minor inconvenience for major piece of mind.

    Life lock provide an additional insurance layer which might also be provided by your home insurance (may be lower limit)

    See also:

    http://www.clarkhoward.com/news/clark-howard/consumer-issues-id-theft/lifelock-reaches-settlement-with-35-states/nFD3/
  • mclaugh
    Considering that:

    LifeLock CEO Todd Davis has been the victim of identity theft AT LEAST THIRTEEN TIMES between June 2007 and May 2010, (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2010-05-13/news/cracking-life-lock-even-after-a-12-million-penalty-for-deceptive-advertising-the-tempe-company-can-t-be-honest-about-its-identity-theft-protection-service/); and that

    LifeLock paid $12 million to settle an FTC complaint alleging that harged that the fraud alerts that LifeLock placed on customers’ credit files protected only against certain forms of identity theft and gave them no protection against the misuse of existing accounts, the most common type of identity theft. It also allegedly the provided no protection against medical identity theft or employment identity theft (http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/03/lifelock.shtm),

    I'd say you're probably better off taking the $10-15/month LifeLock charges and flushing it straight down the toilet.
  • hank
    Hi Catch, We signed up for one from a major player (not the one you're considering) maybe 10 years back. Their econo plan cost something like $12 a quarter. At first the service was great. Every time we took out a new loan there was quick email from these guys telling us somebody had looked at out credit and other details about the inquiry. Liked that. After a few years, this performance stopped. Even when we refinanced our house in 2010, there was no indication from these guys except eventually the new mortgage showed up on credit reports. I started to think "What the heck?".

    Also their once functional website where you could get detailed info on your accounts got more and more difficult to navigate over the years with ads for all kinds of special (expensive) additional services. They made it so you could easilly accidentally agree to some charge you didn't intend to. Got to be such a pain we never looked at it anymore. Finally, cut the cord and now pocketing the $$. May not be typical of others, but that's what happened in our case. I will say having a copy of our full credit report every quarter was nice. We even spotted a small error once and had it fixed with the institution involved. As others have indicated, your entitled to free credit reports periodically anyway. FWIW

  • InvestorInvestor
    Reply to @hank: True free credit reports are available at http://AnnualCreditReport.com

    http://www.clarkhoward.com/news/clark-howard/personal-finance-credit/free-credit-report-info/nFbJ/
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