Safe At Home: Picking An Identity Theft Protection System

Identity theft is not quite the epidemic the media would have you believe, but it is a real threat. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) estimates that every year up to 9 million Americans have their identities stolen. That means that someone will use your name, your Social Security number or one of the many other numbers that define your life to commit fraud.

Your financial loss will probably be limited. You are not legally responsible for bills run up by an identity thief, but the damage to your name and credit rating could be huge. This type of damage disrupts your life and takes time to repair.

According to the FTC, some victims of identity theft can resolve their problems quickly and without outside help. But other people might find themselves mired in a lengthy, expensive process to save their good name and repair their credit record. Because a little outside help might save a lot of time and trouble, we present here an overview of several popular identity theft protection services. (The services named below are included for information only. We do not endorse a particular identity theft protection service.)

What do most identity theft companies do?

In general, these companies provide some combination of the following:

• Fraud alerts
• Credit reports and monitoring
• Credit card monitoring
• Database monitoring
• A guarantee to restore your identity, if stolen
• Identity theft insurance
• Removal from credit card and other junk mail offers

Sadly, there really is an Internet black market in which stolen credit card and other financial and personal information is bought and sold. It’s the aim of the following services to keep your information out of the hands of unscrupulous people.

Suze Orman’s Identity Protector
www.trustedid.com/suzeidprotector
Suze Orman, a popular personal financial expert, has teamed with another company on our list, TrustedID, to create a service bearing her seal of approval.

Suze Orman’s Identity Protector offers all of the following:

• Monitoring of the Internet, public records, and all three credit bureaus
• Credit reports, scores, and alerts
• Anti-spyware
• Resolution service
• Warranty

Each of these popular services offers a $1 million warranty. This sounds good, but losses from identity theft are usually far lower. The real cost of identity theft is the loss of credit, the injury to your reputation, and the time and trouble it takes to clean up the mess.

TrustedID
www.trustedid.com
IDEssentials from TrustedID is basically the same as Suze Orman’s Identity Protector. The company also offers a less expensive alternative, IDFreeze, which does everything except credit monitoring.

Identity Guard
www.identityguard.com
Identity Guard provides all of the protection mentioned above but adds protection for your mobile devices, more frequent credit monitoring, and lost wallet protection. (If you lose your wallet, Identity Guard will cancel your credit cards and advance you up to $2,000 in cash.)

LifeLock
www.lifelock.com
LifeLock’s features are similar to other services discussed here. LifeLock does not provide credit alerts or anti-spyware software solutions. This service does monitor the Internet’s black markets not just for misuse of your credit cards, but also for your driver’s license, Social Security number, home address, or other personal data.

PrivacyGuard
www.privacyguard.com
PrivacyGuard does not monitor the Internet black market. However, their system includes Norton Internet Security Online, which offers the latest in anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam, and anti-phishing applications, among other online controls. PrivacyGuard puts more emphasis on credit monitoring and online data storage than the other services on this list.

Conclusion

There is plenty of information available online about identity theft. You’ll find horror stories of thieves who stole identities and committed serious crimes and innocent victims who spent a year or more trying to regain their good name. You’ll also find that the probability of having your identity stolen is quite low.

Everyone in this digital age must weigh the pros and cons of subscribing to an identity theft protection service and come up with their own answer. I hope that this overview will help you make an informed decision.