Lifelock Problems Causing Identity Crisis?

A few months a go we witnessed several Lifelock problems come to light but the truth is Lifelock didn't seem to be effected and continued to grow, easily surpassing 1 million customers. Lifelock continues to be the leading light in identity theft protection despite several new pretenders hovering in the shadows to step in should the Lifelock problems have been lethal.

In May we had the story of several clients taking class action lawsuits against Lifelock because they claimed the Lifelock advertising campaign was misleading.

The claim hinged on the fact that Todd Davis gives out his social security number in Life Lock advertisements to prove how confident he is in the identity theft prevention provided by Lifelock. It seems they felt, or at least their lawyer felt that this is misleading because actually a criminal took out a small loan for $500 using the SSN of Todd Davis.

This made the news and why wouldn't it, it's a great story but then as the story ran it came to light that actually Lifelock had worked for Davis. The thief who took out the loan was caught and more just as importantly, the Todd Davis credit file remained unaffected.

We also discovered that none of the customers who were attempting the lawsuit had actually suffered a case of identity theft and had not even cancelled their Lifelock subscription. The story quickly got buried once it became clear the person behind it was a opportunist lawyer who'd found a new fat cow to chase.

The next Lifelock problems appeared to be a little more serious. Experian, one of the big 3 credit bureaus were telling anyone who would listen that the service provided by Lifelock could be done by a person without the need of a monthly subscription.

Lifelock, acting on a customers behalf, place a fraud alert on their credit file which means extra care should be taken when agreeing loans, credit agreements etc. Basically it means the person fears their identity may have been compromised so please double check before opening a line of credit. By the way, the person who took out the $500 payday loan in Davis name was able to because the loan company admitted to ignoring the fraud alert.

Experian tell us you can place a fraud alert yourself so Lifelock are taking monthly subscriptions under false pretences. At first glance this looked like serious Lifelock problems and again the press jumped in to what seemed a good story.

A little digging by a few journalists who prefer to report news rather than a good story again showed that what appeared to be Lifelock problems, actually had ulterior motives.

It seems Experian do not like fraud alerts on a person's credit file. They slow down the the business of issuing credit and creates work for them. It's for this reason that a fraud alert only lasts 3 months. 4 times a year you have to go through the whole process of applying for it again.

Lifelock do all this for their clients automatically and should they forget and an identity gets stolen, they guarantee to make good up to the tune of a nice $1 million and it's this their customers are happy to pay a ten buck fee for.

One other reason Lifelock are not the favorite company of Experian is because Lifelock remove their customers names from mail lists. The Lifelock logic is that if you aren't receiving credit card offers through the mail, they can't be stolen and accepted in your name.

It sounds a good idea right? Well guess who sells the credit card companies the names of affluent middle class Americans who the credit card companies want to target? This is a huge business for the Experian and the other 2 credit bureaus as these lists are extremely targeted and thereforeextremely valuable. Imagine sending out your credit card or loan offer to households you already know have several cards and an income of $80K a year instead of just posting to the masses and hoping for the best?

As with most new highly successful companies, ulterior motives are usually found when stories start appearing in the news and the Lifelock problems are no different.

If you were considering signing up with Lifelock, make your decision based solely on the service they offer, not on the Lifelock problems that you may have read about a few months back.

Yes you can do what Lifelock does yourself. You could probably also service your car yourself if you wanted to and some folk do. Others though like the peace of mind that comes with knowing a professional has done it for them and should they mess up, there is a full guarantee as back up.