August 8, 2008

Skip the scams

I’ve long thought that advertising offers some of the best entertainment on television. Admit it - you do, too, don’t you? Gone are the days when the ads offered a few moments to run to kitchen to refill your beverage or dash down the hall the bathroom. We stick around instead and are rewarded with comic relief. You’re still laughing at that silly gecko, right - even though you’ve seen him at least a few hundred times? Don’t you find your toe tapping every time you hear that poor schmuck singing about some hacker stealing his identity, and don’t you know just where to insert your own “Yeeehaw!” into his song? If you accept all this for its entertainmant value and move on, fine. Let’s face it, though: advertising is designed to motivate you to buy something you didn’t even know you wanted. Okay, that’s fine, too. We live in a capitalistic world and everyone has a right to sell things. The problem comes when the advertising is deceptive. Take the afore-mentioned fellow selling fish to tourists in tee shirts as a for-instance. First of all, he really is a singer, but the ad is so fake that it’s not his voice warbling out the ditty. He’s got a French-Canadian accent that didn’t fit the All-American advertising campaign, so he’s a singer pretending to be a singer in the commercials about fake identities. Ironic, no? Still, that’s just a little bit of harmless deception, something we all expect in advertising, right? The real deception is in the message he’s delivering. The free credit reports that could have changed his future? Not free, despite the focus of the ads and the name of the website. If you order your free credit report and miss the fine print on the site you’ll be billed $12.95 monthly for credit monitoring. Trying to cancel the service once you discover the deception is a nighmare. Your call will be answered by someone whose sole purpose in life is to keep your $12.95 a month rolling in. New York Times bestselling author Bob Sullivan did a good job of unmasking the scam on MSNBC’s wbsite and also points you in the right direction for getting a genuine no-strings-attached free credit report. Do that. Everyone should know their own credit score. Everyone should monitor their own credit too, but let’s face it - most of us don’t. Do you have the technology to know immediately if someone has stolen your identity and is planning on ruining your life? I’ve been robbed before - twice. It’s an awful feeling to know that some scumbag has been going through your things and has taken what they wanted. That was in the dark ages, though, before we’d ever heard of the term identity theft. These days the thieves don’t have to bust your car window or break into your apartment. Your information is out there and the bad guys are sophisticated enough to know how to get it. Identity theft is a reality we all need to be prepared to deal with. That’s where the services of a professional credit monitoring service come in. Skip the scams and sign up instead for one that will be upfront with you about what they offer. Lifelock doesn’t feel any need to lie to you to get you to try their service. They sell credit protection and they’re justifiably proud of what they do. You know LifeLock - their CEO is the guy who plastered his real Social Security number on billboards and trucks and buses across the country so you could see how confident they are that they can protect your identity. Lifelock doesn’t just offer identity protection services, either. They’ll reduce junkmail and unwanted credit card offers too, and give you a $1 million service guarantee, all for only $10.00 a month. Wouldn’t you rather do business with someone who doesn’t think they need to lie to get you in the door? I would!