Reviews, please. Is it worthwhile? Any bad experiences?
I heard that the founder of the company who went around showing is SS# on his truck to prove how good his service was ended up being a victim of Identity Theft.
From wikipedia:
LifeLock’s CEO Todd Davis publicly posted his Social Security number on billboards and in TV commercials as part of a campaign to promote the company’s identity theft protection services. In 2007, it was reported that Todd Davis became the victim of fraud when someone used his published social security number to obtain a $500 loan.[18] LifeLock apparently investigated the crime and found the alleged criminal. In an agreement with LifeLock, the alleged identity thief agreed on camera to perform community service to avoid prosecution.[16][17] In total, Davis was a victim of identity theft 13 times during 2007 and 2008 as a result of the advertising campaign - with the total losses in the low thousands of dollars.
It seems scammy to me. The guy who founded Lifelock got the idea for the company when he was sitting in jail for unpaid casino loans. :dubious:
Did a little research. Lifelock isn’t a scam, but this service, Identity Force, might be a better one.
From 2010 - http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/03/lifelock.shtm
LifeLock Review: Is LifeLock Worth it? (Updated for 2025)
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/privacy/lifelock.html
https://www.bbb.org/central-northern-western-arizona/Business-Reviews/identity-theft-protection-and-prevention-services/lifelock-inc-in-tempe-az-83005924/complaints
IMHO, unless you are actively obtaining new credit card accounts, opening bank accounts, risking your own identity with strangers and/or you are not actively doing simple, everyday things to protect your identity, Lifelock and their kind are a waste of money. And in a few links I found, those who joined Lifelock saw in increase in identity theft.
Lifelock may not be a scam, per se, but they make money by needlessly scaring people into thinking they need Lifelock’s services.
Yeah, that’s why I used the term “scammy” as opposed to an outright scam. “Shady” would have also sufficed.
So then is the whole concept of identity theft protection shady?
Back to my original question: does anyone here have personal experience with one of these services?
I also love one of their commercials, in which a woman who’s had her identity stolen gets an email that her loan has been denied. With a big animated graphic, that has big blinking red letters “LOAN DENIED”. Because banks just love to rub it in like that.
ETA: Sorry, no personal experience myself, I’ve managed to resist the siren lure of masterfully convincing commercials like that one.
Well, it seems to me that this is like any "insurance,’ namely, you go your whole life paying for it and hoping you’ll never have to use it. Yeah, insurance is a crap shoot. But the one time you NEED it, you really need it. Identity Force does provide insurance, which the other services do not. My car came with OnStar, which I pay for every month, and hope I never have to use to send emergency vehicles to find my unconscious body in a car wreck on a lonely road (there are a lot of lonely roads in Texas).
[aside]A few years ago, there was a story in the local paper. A woman’s body was found in her car where it had gone off a bridge in a remote area (there are a lot of remote areas in Texas). She was driving back home from an event in a small town (there are looooong stretches-- like 40 miles or so-- of nothingness between small towns here, not like on the east coast). Her husband was at home and at some time during the night, their home phone rang, and he answered it (no caller i.d.). No one was there, and he hung up. I’m thinking that was her calling from her cell right after her car went over, but she was already too injured to talk. OnStar MIGHT have saved her-- or, true, it might not have, as she might have died within minutes of impact. Or she might have lain there suffering for many hours. I don’t recall if there was any followup. Anyhoo, my car was used ("pre-owned’) and it had OnStar and I kept it up. I call them once a month just to make sure it’s still working. Before I moved to town three months ago, for 20 years I had a 40-mile one way drive to the city every day, often late at night or in the middle of the night. For the first 15 years, there were no gas stations on that 40-mile stretch; five years ago one went in. No houses, no farms, no nothing. So OnStar made me feel safer. I’ve never needed it, but i don’t mind paying for it. The end. [/aside]
A friend approached me at work to ask if I used this service and his testimonial turned into an admission that he sells the service as a side job. I smell Amway.
Unfortunately too many products and services are sold this way. The security services that show a frightened woman and child cowering while a masked man, armed with a crowbar, glares through the window comes to mind. But the ads that show neighbors and family members commenting on water stained glasses, dirty floors and poorly manicured lawns use the same technique.
The only money you will lose if your “identity” is stolen is money you pay to a service to help clear up the credit issues. What generally happens is that you will start to be hounded for payment of bills that you did not incur. This money was not stolen from you, it was stolen from some business. Here is the best explanation I have found of identity theft.
This is not to minimize identity theft as it can be a huge pain in the ass to clear up your credit after this happens, and it often continues to happen. In garden variety identity theft the thieves take advantage of “instant” credit. If I go into any large department store, I can get a credit card and up to $500 of credit that can be used today. Quite frankly I don’t want to be able to do this and I certainly don’t want identity thieves doing this. You would think that I would be able to simply say this to the credit reporting agencies and that would be the end of it. No more instant credit. Unfortunately the clients of those reporting agencies (and here it is important to note that you are not their client) make a great deal of money off instant credit. Years ago (before identity theft became a thing) it was almost impossible (short of having very bad credit) to get the reporting agencies to put a flag on your records to prevent instant credit. Even today such a flag usually has a time limit and you need to contact all three reporting agencies. Furthermore, if any company does grant you (or more likely your criminal stand in) instant credit, they will still, of course, hound you. Every time it happens you will need to get on the phone, write letters, get your signature notarized and talk to many offshore employees who don’t understand what you are saying, pretend not to understand, or flat out think you are lying. This is the price of identity theft.
I do not have any experience with any of the services identified in this thread, but here is my WAG. They will have the reporting agencies put a flag on your record and keep it up to date. They either do this when you sign up, or at the first sign of suspicious activity. This may (or may not) frustrate garden variety identity theft. If you are a victim, they deal with the credit reporting agencies. This may (or may not) make it less of a pain in the ass.
The Federal Trade Commission site on Identity Theft is an excellent resource:
[ul]
[li]You are already paying for it via taxes.[/li][li]It’s the Straight Dope.[/li][li]It’s up to you to follow their suggestions, or pay someone else who may/may not do it on your behalf.[/li][/ul]
I’ve experienced two identity theft issues, one caused by my bank and one caused by my employer. Neither ended up in a loss to me because no actual breech was determined, even though thousands of us in the above cases were exposed. Both paid for a year’s worth of credit monitoring with one of the three major credit reporting companies, all much more above board than Lifelock.
An important point I learned in this. Those of us who take an active interest in identity theft don’t need someone else to do it for us. I never use a debit card (except from my own bank’s ATM), and never hand over my credit card to anyone (meaning I will follow you back to your station and watch you complete the transaction in a restaurant, for example). Everything with my name and/or account number, mail address, etc., is shredded.
Yes, I make online purchases, but I have one credit card solely for online purchases. It’s never used anywhere else. And I only make online purchases at home, on my computer. I make sure every transaction I have a receipt and compare it to when the CC bill arrives.
I also monitor my bank accounts quite frequently, again only at home. I never use my smartphone for any transaction or account review. Still my identity could be compromised, but I think I would catch very early. I don’t care if you think this is overkill. According to the FTC I don’t want to endure up to ten years, on average, clearing my name because of identity theft.
I also believe identity theft is similar to two people being chased by a bear. I don’t have to worry about outrunning the bear. I only have to outrun you.
I read the fine print on their “warranty” once. They only make a guarantee concerning the types of ID theft their program monitors. Which they don’t tell you the particulars of.
Interesting. Say, someone had a program that did nothing. No monitoring whatsoever. They any ID theft would be exempt. So a business plan would go: sell ID theft “coverage”, when a customer’s ID is stolen, point out that that particular form wasn’t covered, profit.
I’d stay a mile away from any business with that sort of guarantee.
I subscribe to IdentityGuard, which notifies me every time someone (including me) opens a credit card account using my SSN. It’s $7.50 per month (Costco rate) x 2 (husband and me). It won’t stop identity theft, but it theoretically would help me stop it before too much damage is done.
Thanks. 
Don’t subscribe to those things. Instead you should freeze your credit.