February 5, 2008
Lifelock
My closest friend just had a very bad weekend. She awoke to a phone call early Saturday morning from one of her credit card companies inquiring about some unusual purchases charged against her account. She confirmed that the charges were not legitimate. The company removed the charges from her account and she’s already had a new card issued. Problem solved, right? Wrong! She doesn’t know how someone got her credit card number and, more importantly, what other personal information they may have collected in the process. She’s nervous and concerned about further repercussions, as she should be. It was a topic of our conversation when she came over to dinner on Sunday night. I reminded her of a television commercial we had recently seen and discussed. In the commercial a man points out that his real social security number is shown on the billboard-sized side of a passing truck. He explains that he is confident that publicizing his personal information will not result in his identity being stolen. That’s a pretty bold statement! Todd Davis is able to speak so confidently because he has a lifelock on his personal information. He’s the CEO of LifeLock, a company that provides security against your personal information being used by others, and that backs that committment up with a million dollar service guarantee.
I’ve just watched videos of several news reports that feature LifeLock. I’m impressed with what they do, but I’m equally impressed by their honesty. They freely admit that you can protect your identity yourself by following certain steps … or you can have them do it for you. That leaves us with the question of why anyone would pay for the service. The answer is obvious to me. Most of us don’t follow up on many important things that we intend to do. I’ve discussed my cluttered life and my propensity to procrastinate many times on this blog. If I followed the necessary initial steps to protect my identity, would I remember to renew my fraud alerts with the three major credit bureaus every ninety days? Would I order credit reports from time to time so that I could look for unusual activity? Would I react promptly and know exactly what to do if my identity ever gets stolen? “No” to all three questions. My life is just not that organized. Neither is my friend’s. Would it be worth $10.00 a month to have LifeLock do that for us, and to guarantee that service? Absolutely!
Go check out the site. You’ll find out everything you need to know about how the program works. Watch the news clips. Read the brief testimonials from some satisfied clients. You be the judge. Can LifeLock provide you with the peace of mind that comes with knowing that you won’t be victimized by identity theft? I think it can.
Will I be sending a link to this post to my friend as soon as I hit the “publish” button? You bet! Friends do that sort of thing for each other.
Technorati Tags: fraud prevention, identity theft, identity theft prevention
Posted by skeet @ 12:59 pm • Review, Computers & Technology
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February 5th, 2008 at 3:24 pm, Chelle Says:
Have your friend try to remember if she’s recently ordered anything over the phone that she’s given her credit card number to. Sometimes they can steal it from that. My mom had her checking account stolen that way.
Also, insurance companies now provide identity theft coverage, she should see if she has that in case there are more problems to occur.
February 6th, 2008 at 10:02 am, skeet Says:
Mahalo, Chelle. The card number that was used is the one she uses for online purchases. What she doesn’t know is which merchant as careless with her information.