Target
Kickstarter
Michael’s Hobby & Craft
And now, likely, Sears.
All hacked for credit card data, & I shopped at all of them.
I just popped for Lifelock.
I’m not happy. But I really don’t think anything less is prudent.
You can ask the big three credit bureaus to lock your accounts. New credit and other uses them require specific consumer permission and, IIRC, all attempts generate notification. Free.
Does that include attempts to get loans off property, by identity theft?
Not being able to access or modify a credit report blocks an awful lot of financial shenanigans - if nothing else, you will get notified of the attempts while things like an RE loan was being processed.
I don’t know that it’s an absolute preventative. But then, LifeLock has a lot of detractors and it’s easy to point out that they are essentially reselling free or readily available services. If it’s worth the cost to you, fine… but I wouldn’t use it as an example to turn your back on your finances - check credit card charges when the statements arrive, pull your own credit reports annually, etc. If you do all the reasonable due diligence, there isn’t much left to pay a protection service for.
They also work on no little use of scare tactics, too. Do you really think you’re exposed to bogus property loans, somehow? Nothing I’ve ever worried about.
My mother fell for this scam. I keep trying to convince her to Google “company name” and “scam” before signing up for anything. The old Wikipedia page on the founder was amazing. But somehow all the negative stuff about him keeps getting erased. I wonder how that happens.:dubious:
I really like their guarantee: It only covers things that their software is designed to catch. So, if their software is an empty program, it does nothing at all, you have no recourse! “Crooks did X? Well, let’s see, our program wasn’t designed to catch that. Sorry.”
I think it varies by state – my wife and I recently froze our credit and it was $3 per credit bureau, so $18 total for both of us. I haven’t read anything that mentions the notification policy.
ETA: apparently it is free if you’ve been a victim of identify theft. Judging from Experian’s description, at least, it doesn’t sound like they do any sort of notification when an attempt is made to access the credit file - they just inform the lender that it’s frozen.
I recently joined creditkarma.com, which is free, and the only thing they do is to throw credit card offers at you when you are on the site. So far they haven’t emailed me any spam or anything.
You can see your credit score for free (one of the main three, I forget which one) and you can sign up for alerts that will let you know if there is any activity on your credit report.
This seems ok to me, but if anyone has any bad experience with this outfit, I’d like to hear about it.
Roddy
Cancelled.
Allegedly.
Target offered some kind of monitoring for free. I don’t remember what it was, but you could take them up on that if you’re worried.
This.
We got hit by Target and two other recent financial data break-ins, and all of the affected merchants offered some substantial protection option. I am beginning to think that such third-party protection is no more optional than an antivirus on computers… and I ran for years into the virus era without a problem, scoffing mildly at people who said it was a big issue. My AV reports many deflected problems a day now. Personal finance anti-malware is probably a good idea, starting now.
still no confirmation email.
It was due around 30 minutes ago.
FWIW, my neighbor across the street was victimized by ID/property theft, and his house was “sold” out from under him. It eventually got untangled, and the perps actually got caught and sent to prison, but what a headache.
Apparently the CEO of LifeLock had his own identity stolen when he tried to demonstrate how effective it was. :smack:
And one of the co-founders was involved in some identity theft of his own.
Someone took the advice of another poster without a fight? Am I on the right message board?
Don’t waste your money on credit monitoring services. Instead, freeze your credit. Here is a guide.
My account is closed!
Sheesh. :rolleyes:
I’m one of the rare Board members who actually take advice.
And I did.