Lifelock Scam - Is It? Does Lifelock Live Up To All The Hype?
Lifelock, as I am sure you have seen from the recent ad campaigns with the CEO publishing his social security number because he is so confident in their product along with the million dollar guarantee if your identity is ever stolen has become a lightning rod of controversy as of late. Here is my opinion on the product, a little history on what the real issue is and why Experian has filed a lawsuit against Lifelock.
First and foremost, in my former career, I spent 20 years working inside 5 top credit card banks. During this time frame, I literally talked to hundreds of people that have had their identities stolen. I personally have had my identity stolen on 2 separate occasions. So you may be asking yourself right now okay, but I shred all of my documents and I am not at risk. Nothing could be further from the truth. The most recent mass compromises of social security and identity information have not been due to people dumpster diving through trash bins, but through either internal breeches or network security issues from companies. Do an internet search on TJ Maxx and check out the results.
I can tell you from my personal experience that the hours involved in cleaning up the mess left by identity thieves is nothing short of painful. Even as someone who worked in the credit industry with contacts at major issuers, the credit bureaus and other insider contacts, I had to spend no less than 100 hours of phone time, sending letters providing proof of who I am. The first instance of my id theft happened while I was going to college. I applied for student loans and found out that someone had already taken out $50k in loans in my name. I had to provide the student loan company copies of my birth certificate, my drivers license, social security card and a notarized affadavit before I could get the loan.
So why is Lifelock such a controversial product you are probably asking yourself. Well there are a couple of reasons, first and foremost the banks and credit bureaus are agitated that they did not come up with the concept first. How many times has your bank or credit card company tried to offer you the free 30 day trial of some credit monitoring product? They are not offering to you out of the goodness of their hearts, that I can assure you. They are offering it to make money. Most of these offers are free for the first 30 days, then the prices range wildly from $12 a month up to $30 a month.
My final comment is on the Experian lawsuit against Lifelock. Experian is alleging that Lifelock is charging for something that consumers can get free, namely placing fraud alerts on your credit file. What Lifelock does is continually renews these fraud alerts. The root issue for Experian is that by placing these fraud alerts on your credit file, you are removed out of their marketing lists. Experian makes millions of dollars a year selling your data to the credit card, mortgage companies and other industries. They do not want a main source of revenue shut off. This will play out in the courts over the coming months or years. In the meantime, think about what would happen tomorrow if your identity was stolen.
Lifelock is a great product from my perspective.
http://www.insidebankcards.com
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