Posted: 1/6/2015 8:28:37 AM EDT
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Who uses identity theft protection services? Are they worth it?
LifeLock Ultimate (to me) seems a bit expensive...unless of course someone tries to steal your identity. Has anyone ever had an attempted identity theft thwarted by one of these services? Has anyone had their identity stolen? |
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At one time I had LifeLock, and two other services, one provided by my credit union and one was credit karma.
CreditKarma is free, and I expected the two paid-services to smoke it. I ended up canceling LifeLock due to INCESANT emails and ALERTS and ACTIVITY and OMG THE WORLD IS ENDING STARTING WITH YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER Where I finally broke down and cancelled was after the THIRD "Im a child rapist" report. I swear man they fear monger the hell out of you. Basically got reports all the time about criminal activity "that could possibly match your identity" know what it was? fucking people on the sex registry that have lived within 5 miles of my home. ETA... Credit Karma flagged the same items at the same time at the same accuracy as the other two. FWIW |
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I did a lot of research on all of them and in the end it seems they are not worth it. Go to annualcreditreport.com and get your 3 free reports each year. I get one like every 3 or 4 months during the year just to keep an eye on things. You can get all 3 at once but I just get one, wait a few months and get the next one. That plus being smart these days, don't use a debit card for anything but cash at your own bank's atm, and buy everything else with a credit card and pay it weekly. Keep your risk down. |
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Quoted: Is there something to this? Did he get hacked? Quoted: Quoted: Ask the owner of lifelock how well his service worked for him. There is your answer. Is there something to this? Did he get hacked? |
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Quoted:
Most of the stuff they do you can do yourself for free. Google the Federal Trade Commission and identity theft or credit reporting. this. most people don't have a ton of accounts to monitor. i check all of mine in about 30 min first thing every morning. LOTS of free tools to do it with. there have been lots of reports of people being "alerted" well after the fact that they should have been able to catch themselves in a day or so. |
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save your self some money and just put freezes on your credit reports.
cost 10 bucks per reporting agency to lock or unlock. lock 2 out of the 3 and no one can get credit in your name, not even you. this doesn't prevent your existing credit from being stolen and used, but it does prevent someone from opening any new credit in your name. you have to plan ahead if you need credit. (which you should anyway). but it isn't that big a deal. I don't sign up for random credit cards and I don't buy a car or house on a whim. I unlock them for 30 days while I am doing something I need credit for, otherwise they stay locked. |
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Quoted: save your self some money and just put freezes on your credit reports. cost 10 bucks per reporting agency to lock or unlock. lock 2 out of the 3 and no one can get credit in your name, not even you. this doesn't prevent your existing credit from being stolen and used, but it does prevent someone from opening any new credit in your name. you have to plan ahead if you need credit. (which you should anyway). but it isn't that big a deal. I don't sign up for random credit cards and I don't buy a car or house on a whim. I unlock them for 30 days while I am doing something I need credit for, otherwise they stay locked. Anyone else do this? It seems a lot cheaper than a watch service.
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Quoted:
Anyone else do this? It seems a lot cheaper than a watch service. Quoted:
Quoted:
save your self some money and just put freezes on your credit reports. cost 10 bucks per reporting agency to lock or unlock. lock 2 out of the 3 and no one can get credit in your name, not even you. this doesn't prevent your existing credit from being stolen and used, but it does prevent someone from opening any new credit in your name. you have to plan ahead if you need credit. (which you should anyway). but it isn't that big a deal. I don't sign up for random credit cards and I don't buy a car or house on a whim. I unlock them for 30 days while I am doing something I need credit for, otherwise they stay locked. Anyone else do this? It seems a lot cheaper than a watch service. I am planning on doing this in a couple months. A woman I work with who is pretty money savvy has done this for years because it's cheaper. You just have to unlock it once in a while for new bank account creation for yourself, etc... |