Using only a photocopy of a driver's license and a social security number, James Harman bought over 3 million dollars worth of goods in his brother's name.

The most important point to this story? It wouldn't have happend in the first place if he'd had a credit freeze, but it still would have even if he'd had any kind of monitoring or insurance plan (even Lifelock).

Some new game manufacturers are requiring that the game system you play with have an Internet connection so the game can authenticate itself every few days. Most people are pretty adverse to being treated like criminals just to play a game much like they'd resent a screeching corporate harpy who strikes their hands with a ruler every time they do something that the company deems "unworthy".

Well since the company can't afford to train and assign a corporate harpy to each and every player, they instead put restrictive software that calls home and says, "yup, this guy's still ok". Should the software not be able to call home, like a spy under strict orders to lie low, the game will refuse to operate until given an Internet connection by which to phone home to command.

The funny thing about this is that most of their market will happily and quickly buy their games, but when they put in the screws, those same customers will refuse. However, being avid gamers and fans, when presented with the ability and opportunity to download a cracked copy, they are much more likely to do so since they will still want to play the game.

SO… Adding restrictive software to prevent piracy actually causes piracy. Too bad they don't understand that.

Not only did a lady win almost $3 million for suing equifax, but now they have to pay another half million in attorney fees. The story is that Equifax refused to fix her credit report after she was a victim of identity theft.

Apparently a Lending Tree employee gave internal passwords to external lenders without permission. This resulted in people being offered loans by lenders who shouldn't have been able to see their data. While Lending Tree doesn't believe that this particular activity is likely to lead to ID theft, it is a problem nonetheless.

I wasn't going to cover this story because it's so typical of what's happening recently, but this stuck in my craw. In a letter shared with the Consumerist by a reader, Lending Tree is recommending that people get fraud alerts on their accounts as a precaution.

Fraud alerts are practically worthless! Don't even bother. Get a freeze and you'll actually be protected.

This time, it's in New Jersey.

On its Web site, www.lifelock.com, the company reports that it places requests for fraud alerts with credit bureaus on behalf of its clients. “If someone is trying to use your personal information, you will be contacted by the creditor that is issuing the line of credit,” LifeLock says.

“If you receive a call and you are not the one applying for credit, the transaction should be stopped immediately.”

But creditors are not required to contact applicants even if they have fraud alerts in their files, says the Pasternak lawsuit. The Experian lawsuit makes a similar argument. The Pasternaks also blast LifeLock’s $1 million guarantee, claiming that the fine print renders it virtually worthless.

EXACTLY! Finally someone gets it.

South Carolina's Governor just signed into law a bill that gives SC residents the ability to freeze their credit for free!

And of course there's always this:

The credit reporting industry has opposed such legislation relating to credit report freezes. One concern is that too many states will have different regulations, which would make it difficult for credit reporting bureaus to comply. That's a good argument, and it's why this issue needs to be addressed at the federal level. In the meantime, South Carolina was right to take action on the state level.

Imagine that! Different states have different laws! Oh wah wah, cry me a freaking river! If they wanted to do business in Mexico or Canada, do you think there might be some different laws? It's not as if there aren't companies who do business in tons of different countries in the world successfully despite all the different laws and customs.

This is such a bogus argument, I'm going to have to try to remember not to even bother getting worked up about it anymore.

Though the credit reporting companies scrambled to allow freezes in all states most likely to prevent each state from enacting their own laws with lower fees and more restrictions than they wanted, many states are still pursuing their own legislation (as they should).

Georgia's proposed law would allow freezes for only $3 and would automatically be free for anyone 65 and up (the first state I've heard of to have such a provision). Though it's not law yet, this is one of the better ones I've seen.

Arizona is also busy on a credit freeze law, but I wasn't able to find any details on how well their law is written.

According to Businesswire.com, Lifelock will be adding a real bon-a-fide service to their program.

Effective immediately, LifeLock will begin rolling out eRecon(TM), a regular patrol of the Internet in search of the social security numbers, credit card numbers, driver’s license numbers and email addresses of LifeLock members to protect against the information being illegally traded or sold online.

What is not explained is what parts of the Internet will be "scoured" or what they will do when they find this information. But in either case, a service that actually monitors your online profile is hinting at becoming actually useful. I wonder if the lawsuits had anything to do with this.

Lifelock is that company run by the dude who boasts, "Here's my Social Security Number! I can't be hurt by ID Theft Man, I'm In-VINCIBLE!!!!" or some such nonsense.

First of all, he was robbed by some guy in texas which proves the point I've been trying to make all along: Lifelock doesn't PREVENT ID theft. But more important than that is how this company advertises. Besides having ads just damned everywhere on the web, I've found a wealth of fake sites that pretend to be 3rd party recommendations, but have little to no content other than Lifelock ads disguised as reviews. Whether this is the direct result of Lifelock marketing or the fault of over-zealous users of a Lifelock affiliate program, but either way, having sites like this really damage what little reputation Lifelock has.

This is getting dull so here are some more listed in no particular order

lifelock-promo.com
lifelocktv.net
safeidentityreview.com
getlifelock.net
identitytheftsecrets.com
reviewsonlifelock.com
www.f1racing.ws/

And the following are sites that have other posts, but at least one on lifelock that pretends to be a review, but isn't:

http://www.brokencode.us/finance/lifelock-scam/ (3 articles)
http://brinformatica.alojagratis.org/2008/04/06/lifelock/ (3 articles)
http://mbaonlinedegree.biz/2008/04/10/lifelock-review-for-the-id-prevention/ (1 article)
http://dmnewexpress.com/?p=128 (4 articles)
http://infinitum-media.com/ (4 articles)
http://www.drcopa.com/index.php?s=lifelock&x=&y= (1 article)
http://www.ginolopez.com/?p=43 (1 article)
http://abshome.blogspot.com/2008/04/value-of-life-lock_13.html (18+ articles)
http://msteenybopper.multiply.com/journal/item/146/Lifelock_Promo_Codes (1 article)

And a million more. Just do a search for Lifelock and you'll find them everywhere.

So I got around to getting my credit filed a few weeks ago and now I'm sitting pretty with freeze letters from all three credit reporting companies. Here's a breakdown by company:

Equifax

They sent me a simple one page letter explaining that the freeze had been placed and giving instructions on how to lift it along with a 9ish digit pin. Simple enough. It's nice to note that you can lift the freeze by calling a phone number rather than having to mail something in. They also point out that you have the option to lift it for a specific party or for a period of time. So far so good.

They don't say how long it takes to lift the freeze so I called them to ask (but they were closed). Their hours kind of suck so I'll try again soon and post the results.

Experian

Like Equifax, they sent a single page description of the freeze and how it works with them. They even have a website I can log into to lift the freeze temporarily. Unfortunately, they say it could take up to 3 days to lift the freeze (which is crap since the computer system could lift the freeze in mere seconds). Otherwise, no issues.

Transunion

At first I had a little trouble because I piled all the mailings together and Transunion sent me a credit report along with my freeze. When I couldn't find the freeze data (in a separate mailing), I called them and had to navigate through their brutally hostile phone system (which insulted me and hung up on me once). Fortuneately the person who finally answers was polite and clearly a native English speaker. Once I sorted out the confusion, I opened the correct letter and found what I needed.

The freeze notification is 5 pages long and the PIN is a full 4 digits shorter than the other two companies. Amusingly, they seem to be chiding me for getting the freeze by reminding me how difficult it will be to get credit now (heh). Interesting note: they can't update my name and address information while the account is frozen. Bonus!

They are easily the most detailed in describing how lifting the freeze works though. They say that if you specify a specific entity to access your credit, you will be issued a custom number to give to whoever wants to run your credit. In other words, no one gets your PIN ever. Good.

Like Equifax, they have a phone number that I can call to lift the freeze, but because of their hours of operation (even worse than Equifax), I couldn't call to see how long it takes.

Another breach. Who'd have guessed*?

(*sarcasm)

The company is aware of about 1,800 cases of fraud reported so far relating to the breach.

Surprising that they'd admit that. Now I'm just waiting for them to recommend credit freezes to all their customers. Still waiting… Hmm…

It certainly appears that way. There's almost no content at http://www.igotmyidentitystolen.com/, just ads and links to Lifelock.com.

If it really is a front-site, then Lifelock's advertising campaign is even more aggressive than I thought! I already knew they advertise heavily on websites, but I've seen comments and reviews on many websites that read more like planted ads than actual reviews.

Case-in-point, some guy that left a nice long comment complaining about my views on fraud alerts who's website has another giant ad for Lifelock that's supposed to be a "review", but with all the ads, it's hard to believe that he's impartial.

They must be making money hand over fist!

I can't stand these companies that take advantage of a problem to make some money. Lifelock is that company where the CEO posted his Social Security Number with a challenge to take his identity (which someone promptly did). If you've been considering getting the service, wait. First realize what you're paying for.

If you were to go to their site and read through what they actually do, you'll find that you're not getting much for your money.

1. They place fraud alerts. The problem is, fraud alerts are worthless and do absolutely nothing to protect you from ID theft.
2. They renew the fraud alerts every 90 days. Note that this isn't actually a separate benefit, but they sure seemed to want to have six benefits to their service instead of just five.
3. They remove your name from pre-screened credit card offers. You can do it yourself, freely, and quickly at optoutprescreen.com. Also note that Lifelock fails to mention that this is a one time benefit and not something that you should be paying monthly for.
4. They order your credit reports once per year which is easy for them becuase they can use the free annual credit report you are due by law. The bad part here is that if you wanted to use the very clever advice of getting your report from one of the companies every four months so you can keep a semi-constant tab on your credit, you can't. Lifelock blew your free coupons all at once.
5. They'll keep a list of the companies you have credit cards and such with so you can quickly call them if your wallet is stolen. The FDIC has a great guide about how to do this yourself including the advice to carry a bare-minimum of cards and information and to make your own call-down list.
6. Lastly, insurance.

So to sum up, they give you useless fraud alerts and will renew said useless alerts on a regular basis. They'll order your federally mandated free credit reports for you saving you a whopping 20 minutes of time per year. They put you on a list that prevents many pre-screened offers which is a one-time 5 minute cost to them. They'll keep a list of all the companies you should contact if you lose your wallet though if you have so many to contact that it's that hard for you to do yourself, I'd be more concerned about the number of credit cards you have. And of course, they're an insurance provider.

When all is said and done, Lifelock is nothing more than credit theft insurance with little more benefit. And rather than pay a monthly fee for insurance, you are far better off getting a Credit Freeze which actually does protect against ID theft rather than just try to clean it up after the fact. Factor in that a freeze is a fraction of the cost of insurance (and free in some cases), Lifelock just doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Let's hope the hype dies down soon and we can watch Lifelock drift into business oblivion. The sooner the better.

Related topic(s):

The Credit Monitoring Ripoff
Bogus Lifelock Sites Litter the Web
Class Action Suit Against Lifelock
Lifelock Adds a REAL Service!?
Another Class Action Suit Against Lifelock

Another data breach, blah, blah, blah.

Remember to freeze your credit and never have to worry about this stuff again.

Georgetown U lost a hard drive full of personal data on students and staff. Of course, if they get a credit freeze, they won't have as much to worry about.

Remember that TJX, the idiot company responsible for the biggest data breach in history, managed (somehow) to have part of their punishment include having to put their products on sale (oh, curses!)? Well, some Attorney Generals aren't satisfied with that.

It's nice to know that someone in a position of authority is actually paying attention.

Rather than preventing the problem, many companies are satisfied (and make tons of profit) by inventing new services to attack the symptoms rather than the problem.

Don't waste your time or money. Get a credit freeze and don't worry about all the snake oil.

(H/T to The Consumerist for the link)

Here we go again. At least this time, it's only on the order of a few hundred thousand people.

Note: it's a little sad to have to say that.

Due to the data breaches and high profile cases of laptops gone missing, people can easily forget that ID theft is easy to pull off without high technology skills.

[the study] found that, by and large, much of today's identity theft is still carried out using old-school methods, such as mail theft and dumpster diving. Thieves also used information from public records to piece together an individual identity, and many stole information from retail outlets like stores and gas stations.

Be sure to read my Identity theft/Identity protection guide for more information about preventing people from getting and using your data.

Related topic(s):

Credit Security Freezes (How to Stop ID Theft, Part 1)

Consumeraffairs is now reporting that the last credit reporting company, Experian, will now be offering credit freezes in all 50 states, just like the other two.

Credit freezes have always been the quickest, strongest, and most effective way to reduce identity theft. And while this is true:

All three credit bureaus had staunchly opposed credit freezes in the past, claiming the practice would harm consumers seeking credit and slow down industries that depend on instant access to credit.

If you've been reading how instant credit is destroying lives and burying people under mountains of debt they can't handle, this doesn't seem like a problem at all.

Anyway, they're not all in effect yet and I think that further legislation would be good to make sure that these companies don't worsen the deal over time, but it's a damn good start.