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After picking up a job that has me traveling a lot, I have thought about getting a credit monitoring/ID theft prevention service. Then yesterday happened. My wallet disappeared for roughly 12 hours. Then someone showed up at my house with my wallet and everything still in it, including my check card and roughly $65 in cash. Which I think was $5 more than I had in it before I lost it. The gentleman who returned it was awesome, and refused the $50 I tried to give him for taking time out of his day to return it, with everything still in place. Wouldn't even let me buy him lunch. The damage however was done. All my credit cards were canceled, debit cards, checking account shut down, 90 fraud alert placed on my credit stuff through the FTC, which the SSN administration told me to call. I did all the poo poo I could think of and was actually on the phone with the DMV when the guy showed up. So now that whole ID theft protection service sounds like a real smart idea. Problem is which companies are actually good at it and which ones blow? Anyone have experience with them? Any recommendations? The FTC, who the the SSN Admin directed to, me had a partnership with TransUnion. I have seen adds for LifeLock. And web searches.. Well its the internet and frankly, I don't know if clicking that link with a .zir is a good idea. I called my bank (Wells Fargo) and while the lady was helpful with shutting down my accounts and getting it fixed, she was not well versed in ID theft protection.
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| # ? Feb 13, 2013 01:19 |
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| # ? May 25, 2013 16:15 |
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All LifeLock does is place a fraud alert on your credit report at all three reporting agencies, making it more difficult (yet not impossible) to open new credit accounts with your name and SSN. It's not a bad idea, but you can do it with a few phone calls or on the web for free.
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| # ? Feb 14, 2013 07:07 |
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Thanks to various people losing my personal data, I have gotten free membership from idintegrity.com and protectmyid.com over the years. They seem to be fine - I get an email any time a credit check or something happens. I haven't had enough activity to really vouch for how they work when poo poo hits the fan though. Nor do I think you can just go sign up for them, although the second one is via Experian so it's probably more or less the same thing I can get through my bank for $6/mo.
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| # ? Feb 14, 2013 17:57 |
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Thanks for the feedback. I already have a fraud alert through the FTC. But I was wondering if the theft protection services were worth the $225 a year or so that they charge. I have to go down to the bank to sign some paperwork for the new accounts that they are moving my stuff to. I'll check with them about what they offer/recommend. But I am still interested in hearing from others who have either had or worked with other theft prevention services. Can't hurt to look into others.
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| # ? Feb 15, 2013 00:05 |
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I've heard from many sources that I cannot list off the top of my head that lifelock is entirely useless, and for $225/year sounds like a total loving scam.
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| # ? Feb 22, 2013 00:38 |
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Well that Lifelock CEO who put his SSN on commercials had his identity stolen 10 times.
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| # ? Feb 22, 2013 00:50 |
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I've been looking into some of this for a family member, and it seems like the real meat of Lifelock's service is something you can do on your own time. Lifelock and other similar services will happily do it for you, though, for $250 a year. Here's an article on why Lifelock is scumbag Rush Limbaugh's only remaining tech sponsor. Here's an archived five-page article (from  2007 ) full of Lifelock anecdotes and what they can and can't do as a service. The article's bottom line:quote:Chances are you'll never be targeted by identity thieves. And if you are, there's next to nothing an identity-protection firm could've done to prevent it. Or much it could do to help you solve the problem that you couldn't easily do yourself — at little to no expense. It also says that the best thing you can do is check your credit report quarterly and place a fraud alert on your credit with either one of the three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian or TransUnion, who will then pass it on to the other two. This is the kind of thing Lifelock would do for you for a price. Even then, that will only monitor when someone modifies your credit or tries to establish new credit in your name -- to the point of calling you and verifying every single legitimate use of your credit. It WON'T cover credit union accounts or any credit cards you have that don't run through your bank. Again, this was information I gleaned from a six year old article, so I don't know if any part of Lifelock's service has improved since then (or if the article's advice is still valid). I'm kind of in the same boat you are, Danica!, so I'd definitely appreciate some more information from fellow goons.
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| # ? Feb 22, 2013 02:44 |
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Awesome. Some great feedback. To be honest, Lifelock always seemed to me to be kind of bogus. But I don't know how they or other identity protection services work. So it doesn't hurt to see if there is a goon or two who work either for a company, or understands what they do. I went through the basics, but if there was an extra step to take I definitely want to do that.
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| # ? Feb 22, 2013 18:35 |
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Danica! posted:Awesome. Some great feedback. Lifelock is just a way to scam old people who are scared of internet hackers.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2013 19:32 |
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Read the Wikipedia page about Lifelock, I remember hearing about several of the controversies while I was living in Phoenix. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeLockwikipedia posted:In March 2010, LifeLock was fined $12 million by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for deceptive advertising.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 05:03 |
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You can just email the credit bureaus and they will lock credit pulls for free. No need to pay someone for this. You will be denied for any loans you apply for though, which is the point.
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| # ? Mar 1, 2013 14:38 |
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Elephanthead posted:You can just email the credit bureaus and they will lock credit pulls for free. No need to pay someone for this. You will be denied for any loans you apply for though, which is the point. I'm going to assume it's easy to unlock later if you need to apply for a new card or something right? I should probably go ahead and do this instead of paying $3 bucks a month (Special my wife gets at work) for credit monitoring.
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| # ? Mar 1, 2013 16:28 |
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Orange_Lazarus posted:I'm going to assume it's easy to unlock later if you need to apply for a new card or something right? I should probably go ahead and do this instead of paying $3 bucks a month (Special my wife gets at work) for credit monitoring. If it's that easy to unlock then what's the point? What are they going to do to verify you're the one asking? Ask for your SSN? I mean hello. RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS fucked around with this message at Mar 16, 2013 around 21:31 |
| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:23 |
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Just because it hasn't been said yet: don't carry your social security card with you.
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| # ? Mar 17, 2013 20:53 |
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| # ? May 25, 2013 16:15 |
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:If it's that easy to unlock then what's the point? What are they going to do to verify you're the one asking? Ask for your SSN? I mean hello. Maybe they ask for more than my SSN to lock/unlock but even if it is super easy to unlock I think it would stop most identity thieves in their tracks regardless. I'm sure most identity thieves would probably just move on and use another identity if one didn't work when applying for a credit card or car loan.
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| # ? Mar 18, 2013 13:07 |
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