Is LifeLock identity theft protection really a rip-off?

I couldn't disagree with you more. I did sign up for LifeLock and find that paying just $99 for the year to renew my fraud alerts every 90 days throughout the year plus the other services....is more than worth it. I recently went to open a new bank account and was required to provide more information because of the LifeLock service. It would have stopped a thief in their tracks.

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I never cease to be amazed at how often something is described as a "rip-off" on the basis that it's something we could do for ourselves for free. How does that criterion automatically make something a rip-off? I can cut my own lawn, but if I hire a lawn maintenance service to do it, does that mean that lawn maintenance services are rip-offs? I can certainly clean my own swimming pool, but if I choose to use a pool cleaning service, am I being ripped off? For some reason, this seems to come up a lot when it comes to the financial services business. I work in money management, and I can't tell you how many times I've heard consumer advocate types talk about how money management is a rip-off, that you can manage your own money if you're willing to put the time in to study what you need to know. No kidding! The point is that many people don't want to spend time doing these things themselves, so they are happy to pay someone else to do it for them; that doesn't make the service a rip-off.

Granted, if something does not work as advertised, and it's shown over and over again to not work as claimed, then you can perhaps refer to it as a rip-off, but that's not what Tracy Coenen says is the "main problem" here; she says, about halfway through her piece, that the "main problem" is that you pay for what you could do on your own for free. Sorry, in my book, that's not a rip-off; that's the free market at work. How is THAT a ripoff?

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Thanks for your blog. I've been waiting for people to start questioning these types of services. With identity theft in the media constantly, many people have come up with a brillant idea of ways to profit from people's fears. A consumer should be concerned about minimizing their risk. Signing up for services such as this only opens a consumer up for more risk. You are basically giving out your personal information to a middleman who passes it on to the company who issues the actual service. Simply put, you've just opened yourself to more risk. Some of these pay-for-services also require consumers to give them a limited power of attorney. These should all be red flags. Bottom line in terms of fraud alert is that its a nice idea, put poorly executed. The federal law that requires fraud alerts doesn't require a business to abide by the alert before opening new credit or gives consumers a way to hold businesses responsible if they don't. If consumers are serious about protecting their identity, then they should consider security freeze. Each state law is different, but consumers in Indiana and South Carolina can use this tool for free.

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I'm so happy to see more people spreading the word. With their advertising campaign being so aggressive, sometimes people like me who know better get drowned out.

Here it is folks: Get a credit freeze. They actually protect your idenity. Lifelock is a prettily wrapped insurance plan, nothing more. And it DOESN'T prevent ID theft, it only cleans up after the fact (assuming they make good on their promise).

http://www.jeremyduffy.com/lifelock-sucks

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What everyone fails to mention when they say "you can do it yourself for free" is that you have to do it EVERY 90 days. I don't know about you, but I'd get it right the first time, and maybe the second time... but by the third or fourth time, I'd forget and it would never get done again.

It's worth $99 a year, just to know it's done. The rest of the services are just a bonus. My wife's purse was stolen the other day and Wallet Lock came in handy. Granted, I wouldn't pay $99 bucks just for Wallet Lock, but it was nice to have as part of the package.

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We have a "identify theft protection service" that does nothing, as far as I can tell, other than send out a monthly email that says "no activity". It's supposed to tell us if anybody asks for a credit report, opens a new account, etc. Since we've had it we refinanced our house (got the email - "no activity") and had a purse stolen complete with multiple credit cards and checkbooks. Fortunately the theft was noticed quickly and the cards were cancelled and accounts closed, but not before the thieves started using the cards. One card company called because there was an unusual pattern of use, but did the "identity protection service" call? No! Subsequently the thief wrote bad checks on the closed account (much work and expense sending back notarized signature cards to prove it wasn't us), but the service didn't cover that, because "it's not identity theft". The thief even used the AAA card three times to have a car towed! (Didn't find that out until we got a letter from AAA saying they won't provide another tow). The person attempted to open an Old Navy account, but failed because the store doubted the applicant - but the identity protection service never even knew about that!

But you know what is REALLY lame? The fee is an automatic charge to our Visa card, and we can't get our acts together to cancel it! What suckers we are!

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RIP OFF WITH A CAPITAL "R". If Identity Theft could be "Stopped", don't you think someone would have done it a LONG time ago? Plus this wanna be protection service only addresses the financial area of identity theft (which is the easiest one to fix) and does not even do any monitoring which is KEY is finding out you have been a victim of this horrible crime. Besides I don't know about you, but I don't want to live my life in LOCK DOWN mode! thanks

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You can't trust anyone or any place to keeps your personal information safe for you... Never put your SSN# on anything and never provide it over the phone.. Shread eveything with your name and/or address or account info on it.....The credit places only get paid to put bad info on yours records so it will take alot of letters but do it as a form letter and send them out every 30 days or so.. 75 days is best.. Since they can take 60-90days to do anything... Protest everything on your record even if correct make them investigate and prove the info.. They can't.. Get a low amount credit card and use that only on secure networks on internet and have the card protected from fraud... Stop using your debit card at stores, gas station etc.... If mailing a check always ensure you cant see the check from the outside and list only the po box not VISA or payment center... Hope that helps..

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I don't know about lifelock.

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All I can say is watch the movie Tommy Boy with the late Chris Farley. A great quote from the movie is "I can poop in a box and stamp a guarantee on it, and I just sold you a GUARANTEED P.O.S" That is all this lifelock deal is.

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yep, lifelock is a crooked deal. there are many out there. you can do it on your own. in fact with this one world order thing people from russia can take what they want, and other wierd countries. so you better depend on yourselves for protection. arm yourselves with knowledge. paying for a stupid thing like that is just stupid.we live in a very very dishonest and corrupt world now. sigh

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Ok why would you want to pay to have this service?

All you have to do is contact each of the credit agencies, tell them you want to set up fraud alert ( it is good for 3 years) in doing this it automatically stops about 98% of thos pesky credit card offers. And you can contact each agency once a year for a free report you can even get your free report online by going to each of their web sites. Calling each agency make take a total of about 45 min. ( maybe less depending on the time of day) each online report maybe 15min. It's free and the fraud alert is good for 3 yrs. I know this because I do it.

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I don't know if LifeLock is a ripoff or not. I do know that it is naive to think that your SSN is safe if you don't give it out. It's already all over the place waiting for some crook to get it and use it. Google identity theft. You'll be horrified by what you read. Credit card fraud is often confused for identity theft because of those clever commercials with the funny voice overs but it's really a walk in the park compared to identity theft. It won't take just a few phone calls to clear it up either. You'll have a new part time job except you won't get paid. And it could take months maybe even years to clear up. You're likely to have to hire an attorney. As we consumers get smarter about protecting ourselves the crooks are getting smarter too. They're targeting children. It takes a lot longer to discover. Who thinks to moniter the credit of a 2 year old, especially since your 2 year old doesn't go around giving out his/her SSN. Imagine how shocked you'll be to find out 15 -20 years from now that your child can't get a school loan or buy a car because someone else abused their credit. So maybe LifeLock's million dollar guarantee isn't any good. $10 a month for fraud alerts from all 3 credit bureaus seems like a bargain to me when you really understand the risks you are taking by not having it.

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Be aware that a "fraud alert" and a "credit freeze" are two different things. When you notify the 3 credit reporting agencies (Equifax, TransUnion and Experian) and request that a fraud alert be put on your credit record, that means that any time a company requests information about your credit record (like if you apply for a new credit card, loan, etc.), you will be notified first. In contrast, if you have requested a credit freeze from the 3 reporting agencies, when a company requests info about your credit, it will be like you don't even exist. My husband and I have credit freezes at all three agencies and we recently applied for a new car lease with Toyota and the finance guy there said he had never seen it before (since Texas just began allowing credit freezes in Sept. 2007). He said we were like ghosts. It costs $10.00 for each of the 3 agencies ($30.00) total forever (not per month or per year). The only thing is that when you want to apply for credit cards, a loan, or even open a new bank account, you will have to call at least one credit reporting agency's automated line to temporarily unfreeze your record. That costs $10.00. If you hardly ever apply for anything, it's not a big deal, but if you are planning to buy a new house, or if you're the kind of person who likes to apply for department store credit cards every time they offer you 10% off for applying, etc., then you might get annoyed by having to unfreeze it every time. The process is quite easy, really. In the case of our car loan, I just asked them which reporting agency they used, then that's the one I un-froze. You just call an automated toll free number and it's unfrozen as soon as you finish the call. You can set up how long you want to keep it un-frozen so it freezes back up automatically per your request. Hope this info is helpful! I feel much better and safer knowing it's frozen.

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how stupid n blindsided is he the ceo of lifelock using is identity is being stolen hes prob one of them that is one of the identity thiefs. how can a ceo be making boku bucks at something that is ridicoulus fake. got to look at it ive seen the commerical if its to good to be true then it a fake why would someone put there ssn blasted all over knowing his identity is being stolen all over the world why would he want something when it has been stolen from him maybe its just one big fake crap just to gain attention on himself for others to feel sorry for him u cant feel sorry for stupidity

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