Lifelock Blog – Identity Theft Protection and LifeLock Reviews

To distinguish the differences between LifeLock and typical credit monitoring services, we’ll begin by taking a look at what the credit monitoring services do for you. Every time you make application for credit, sign up for utility services such as electric or gas service, buy automobile insurance, and often when you submit an employment application, a copy of your credit history will be obtained from one of the credit reporting agencies. These files are maintained by the three major credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. There are other smaller credit reporting agencies, but the huge majority of requests for credit histories are made to one or more of those three.

Credit monitoring companies charge a monthly fee allowing you to view the information contained in your credit report files. As you may know, federal law permits you to receive copies of your credit report once every year for free. You may also get a free copy if you have been turned down for credit. It would seem prudent, however, to be able to check your report more often, in the event that erroneous information gets on your credit report, or the growing possibility of identity theft. It is a well documented fact that a majority of credit files maintained by the big three agencies contain erroneous information. With continuing credit monitoring you are more likely to catch and correct (or at least try to correct) the mistake. It’s worth noting that the most advertised and used credit monitoring services are affiliates of the big three.  

What LifeLock does differently is to put a fraud alert on your account with all three credit reporting agencies. You can do this yourself, but will you remember to renew it every 90 days? LifeLock does it for you automatically and continuously. This fraud alert requires any prospective creditor to contact you by phone, at the number you choose, or take other reasonable measures to verify your identity and confirm that the credit application is not the result of a stolen identity. They also take steps to remove you from pre-approved credit lists in order to minimize the likelihood of identity theft by someone obtaining pre- approved credit mailers sent to you.

As you can imagine, LifeLocks’ proactive approach to prevent you from falling prey to identity thieves. In fact, LifeLock is so confident in their system that they guarantee that if you have your identity stolen while using their service, they will make sure that all information is made correct, no matter the effort or cost to them, and stunningly, guarantee to reimburse you for any monetary losses suffered due to identity theft, up to ONE MILLION dollars.