Stop Identity Theft

Not so long a go we witnessed several Lifelock problems make the news but truth be known the company were never effected and continued to grow, reaching a million customers in the process. Lifelock is still the leading light in identity theft security in spite of one or two new companies skulking in the shadows to step in should the Lifelock problems have proved to be lethal.

In May we had the breaking news of several clients taking class action lawsuits against the company over claims the Lifelock advertising campaign was misleading.

The claim hinged on the fact that Todd Davis gives out his social security number in Life Lock advertisements to show how confident he is in the identity theft prevention provided by Lifelock. It appears they felt, or at least their lawyer felt that this is misleading because actually a criminal took out a cash loan for $500 using the SSN of Todd Davis.

Obviously this made the national news, it’s a good story but then as it unravelled it came to light that actually Lifelock had worked for Davis. The thief who took out the fraudulant loan was caught and more just as importantly, Davis credit report remained unblemished.

We also discovered that none of the clients who were attempting the lawsuit had actually suffered a case of identity theft and had not even cancelled their Lifelock subscription. The story died as quickly as it appeared.

The next Lifelock problems to appear seemed a little more serious. Experian, one of the big 3 credit bureaus were reporting that the service provided by Lifelock could be done by anyone without the need of a monthly charge.

Lifelock, acting on a on behalf of their clients, place a fraud alert on their credit file which means extra care should be taken when issuing loans, credit agreements etc. Basically it means the person is concerned their identity could have been compromised so please double check before opening a line of credit. By the way, the person who took out the $500 payday loan in Davis name was able to because the loan company admitted to ignoring the fraud alert.

Experian tell us you can place a fraud alert yourself so Lifelock are taking monthly fees under false pretences. This looked like serious Lifelock problems and again the press jumped in feet first.

A little bit of digging by a few journalists who prefer to report news rather than a good story again showed that what appeared to be Lifelock problems, actually had ulterior motives.

It seems Experian do not like fraud alerts on a person’s credit file. Fraud alerts slow down the the business of issuing credit and creates work for them. It’s because of this that a fraud alert only lasts for a period of 3 months. 4 times a year you have to go through the whole process of applying for it again.

Lifelock manage this for their customers every 3 months and should they forget and an identity gets misused, they have a guarantee that kicks in to the tune of a cool $1 million and it’s this that their customers are more than happy to pay the $10 fee for.

One other reason Lifelock are not the favorite company of Experian is because Lifelock remove their customers names from all the financial mailing lists. The Lifelock logic is that if you aren’t receiving credit card offers through the mail, they can’t be stolen and accepted in your name without your knowledge.

It sounds a good idea right? Well guess who sells the credit card companies the names of affluent middle class Americans who the credit card companies want to target? This is huge business for the Experian and the other 2 credit bureaus as these lists are extremely targeted and therefore worth a lot of money. Imagine sending out your credit card or loan offer to homes you already know have several cards and an income of $100K a year instead of just posting to the masses and then having to go through all the applications to sieve out the good from the bad?

As with most new highly successful companies, darker motives can usually be found when stories start appearing in the papers and the Lifelock problems are no different.

If you were considering joining Lifelock, make your decision based solely on the service they offer, not on the Lifelock problems that you may have read about back in the Summer.

It’s worth remembering that yes you can do what Lifelock does yourself. You may also be capable of servicing your car yourself if you wanted to and some folk do. Others though like the peace of mind that comes with the knowledge that a professional has done it for them and should the person doing the job mess up, there is a full guarantee on offer as a back up.

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