Lifelock Sucks
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.
- They place fraud alerts. The problem is, fraud alerts are worthless and do absolutely nothing to protect you from ID theft.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Lastly, insurance.
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.
Update
Lifelock has added another "real" service that scans the web for your data to notify you if there's activity associated with your name/address etc. I haven't seen any information for HOW they do this or what happens when they notice something, but this smacks of an actual service.
Note that if you have a credit freeze, Lifelock is still not worth the money. The only thing that would make them worth anything is if they took me up on my open challenge.
1 rating, 3 votes)
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February 22nd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Jeremy, it is my belief that a consumer advocate should present things in a fair manner especially since identity theft is such a serious crime. It is not fair to make blanket statements like fraud alerts are useless and then not back it up. I think in this case you are doing your fans a disservice. Everyday LifeLock, LoudSiren, TrustedID and other companies who place fraud alerts turn down illegally sought after credit or rather their customers who are notified do. People who have placed fraud alerts themselves have also been protected. The only concern with fraud alerts is that a creditor may not call you which gives you recourse through the FACT ACT passed in 2003 which states they must either call or take reasonable steps to verify the identity of the person requesting credit. If it is not you then they obviously didn’t take reasonable steps.
This is why reputable businesses like Banks, department stores, mortgage brokers etc. already have procedures in place to call and I realize fraud alerts are not full proof but that is why you also have insurance.
Personally I think it is better than a freeze for the following reasons: Your credit is still readily available to you without the long delay of a freeze. A freeze has to be done with the credit agencies who have long been known to provide little to no customer service and many, many people who have dealt with them want nothing to do with them again. Freezes don’t provide insurance and also cost money though as you mentioned it is free for identity theft victims in some states. A freeze ranges from $5 to $20 dollars and in the large majority of states is $10. So thats $30 because you have to place them with all three agencies. Also if you want credit you will have to lift the freeze and that is another $10. If you have a problem lifting your freeze you will be dealing with a credit agency, good luck getting a hold of them and having them do something for you. They don’t like freezes or fraud alerts because it is an extra cost to them and they prevent the agency from selling your information which is their main source of income. Ask anyone who has tried to have them remove wrong information from their account and I mean anyone and you will see what I mean.
You have to realize that many people want quick access to their credit and are willing to pay a company for the services they provide even if they can do it for free. Look at all the grass cutting companies, maids, painters – people can do this themselves and save money but they choose not to. Heck last year I even bought vegetables that I could have easily grown in my garden. I usually do grow them, and must admit I even enjoy doing it, but last year I did not feel like doing it. This is my choice and there is nothing wrong with that choice. Presenting people with options by saying you could do it yourself or freeze your accounts as an alternative to LifeLock would have been a good article but to blatantly say that fraud alerts are useless is simply wrong. For many people it is their best option. Why do you think the State of Ohio and Connecticut chose fraud alerts to protect their residents after a breach. A freeze may have been cheaper for them but they realized their residents did not want their credit tied up with a bureau. In fact I don’t know of a single company, City, State, or Institution that provided a freeze to those effected by a breach. Maybe, just maybe their is a reason for this and maybe you should reconsider your position and at least say this choice might be right for some people but I prefer a freeze for the following reasons… that would at least not make your readers feel stupid for having purchased a service or placed fraud alerts themselves. Also it would be far more accurate then a blanket statement that fraud alerts are useless.
February 25th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Fraud alerts depend on the granter of credit to modify their behavior due to a warning check mark. Given the retail stores where I worked, the low paid staff aren’t that trustworthy to protect identities especially when faced with a large sale that management is eager to push through. That doesn’t even count employees that are on commission. If you had followed the link in that line you would have seen my article explaining all this (my “backing it up”).
Even worse, fraud alerts require some justification and the credit reporting companies can refuse to place them. I honestly don’t know how companies like Lifelock handle this.
As for freezes, just because a credit reporting company will resist them and has poor customer service is no reason to avoid freezes. Good states have laws requiring timely response to requests for freeze and requests to life the freeze. As for money, you can’t seriously think that a one time $30 (to place all three freezes and an occasional extra $10 (depending on how many times per year you need access to your credit) costs more than insurance! For $10 per month (Lifelock’s pricing) you’d have to open 12 new credit accounts per year for a freeze to cost as much! If someone seriously uses that much credit, then maybe a freeze is a bad idea, but I don’t know many people like that. And keep in mind that freezes blocks theives access to your credit, insurance DOESN’T.
And your last point that people are lazy and willing to pay for it… this is true. But for people who want to feel secure and realize that the times they actually need to allow companies access to their credit is very few and far between, there is no better way than a credit freeze. Not by a long shot. My whole point was that if you have a credit freeze, you don’t need the fraud alert in the first place! So people who don’t want to have the chore of protecting their credit shouldn’t pay a monthly fee to avoid it, they should just freeze it.
As for why states didn’t offer freezes: freezes cost, fraud alerts don’t. What state would make a choice to pay for hundreds of thousands of people to get a freeze versus fraud alerts which are free. Now the state can seem to be protecting people which will hopefully stem lawsuits and they didn’t pay a dime.
Besides, I refuse to take criticism from someone who runs a Lifelock advertisement site and won’t even leave their name in their comment.
March 11th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Jeremy:
I agree with your comments on Life Lock. They actualy suck. Most reputable financial institutions will not sell their product. I see that Truliant Federal Credit Union does however http://www.truliantfcu.org
I work as a security director for a major financial institution and your response from one person on the blog is incorrect. If he wants proof of how credit works, tell him to e-mail me. I have thousands of cases where fraud protection did not work. The word is CREDIT FREEZE which is mostly free for military people and about $10 for others. Life Lock and other companues like them feed like sharks on stupid and misinformed people. I guess my question is why would you buy fraud insurance from a company when the CEO was arrested for stealing the same info? Why would you buy the crap when Todd Davis’s social security number was used to commit the same fraud is supposed to safe guard. In other words, life lock is a bottom feeding company who pray on the weak and stupid misinformed.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Dam then Paul Harvey is really getting paid a lot to lie to us all
May 7th, 2008 at 5:58 am
For those who don’t know, Paul Harvey is a radio personality who has been recommending Lifelock. And yes, he probably gets paid well to do so. To be fair, he might actually believe it’s a good service. A lot of people who don’t know much about it do.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
[Jeremy: I debated about letting this comment go, but this company has begun a somewhat agressive web-campaign to market their coming service. I don't know anything about them other than they have a poorly designed website that takes way too long to get into and that they've been leaving "coming soon" comments all over the place.
Anyway. Now you know they exist. Deal with them if you want, but I doubt they'll be worth the money either. When they finally explain what they do, maybe I'll do a post on them as well.]
Where LifeLock doesn’t excel Lockdownmyid.com will.
We have improved and made excellent identity theft
prevention and we will soon be launching our service.
LOCKDOWNMYID.COM
May 9th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Jeremy,
I have decided to respond to your comments made regarding LOCKDOWNMYID.COM
Our company welcomes consumer advocates life yourself to the process of
finding the right company to help prevent the increasing problem of identity theft.
You stated we have a poorly designed website but our site has not launched as
of yet, but we do have a pre-launch page up designed to stoke curiosity until
we finally launch. I wanted to explain our service so that there is no mistake.
LockDownMyID.com will be a web based task oriented service directing the customer
to extract their personal data fromn the web, junk mail lists, etc. We not only
help customers prevent ID theft but we also help them protect their privacy.
We DO NOT ask the customer for power of attorney, nor do we store any personal
identification on our server like soc security number, credit cards, etc. We
give the customer REAL identity theft insurance in case of any identity theft
they might encounter while subscribed to our service. We also provide a re-curring
monthly newsletter, fraud alert call forwarding to 3 numbers designated by the customer,
and 90 day e mail alerts. We DO NOT recommend a credit freeze because it is not in the best
interest of the customer simply because it makes it harder on the customer if they wish to
make purchases, and have their credit checked for whatever reason.
Here are the basic differences btwn LockDownmyID.com and the rest of the competiton:
1.) We DO NOT ask for power of attorney. Control of identity remains with the customer. ( As it should be)
2.) We are a monthly subscription service and offer 50% of all monthly revenue to our affiliates.
The other services out there DO NOT offer a share of the revenue, nor do they have an effective affiliate
program in place that offers monthly residual earning potential for their affiliates. Our service is designed
to spread awarness of the identity theft problem, offer solutions and services to prevent it and educate the
customer. Customers also get access to all new innovative services and updates as they are added. We will
strive to be the best legitimate web based service for consumers who wish to prevent identity theft.
Prevention is key. Also, having piece of mind in case of a theft instance is paramount to each and every one
of us because in reality we are all potentially at risk. Without prevention if you were to become a victim
of identity theft it would be costly and some have even done jail time because they were not able to prove
it wasn’t them. Again, I applaud your efforts to inform the general public and hope you like our service once
we launch. We are aggresively promoting the prelaunch of our service because we see too much deceptive marketing
regarding some companies and wish to improve upon the entire process of identity theft prevention.
Sincerely,
Anthony Tomei/Vice President
e mail: anthony@lockdownmyid.com
http://www.lockdownmyid.com
May 9th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Awesome
Well Anthony, you certainly responded to my comment and I respect that. I don’t agree with your advice about Credit Freezes (obviously, just look around my site), but I can see that you believe in the service you are providing and that alone looks to me to be a step-up from Lifelock.
I wonder about your claim that Lifelock has a poor affiliate plan. If that’s the case why are there SO many bogus Lifelock review sites out there? I have a link to the article I did about it up there in the “Related Stories” section. Not that I care, Lifelock can certainly afford to pay people well since they’re robbing people blind (in my opinion).
May 9th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Jeremy,
Lifelock has a very poor affiliate plan. It’s not readily available and takes 24 to 48 hours to get their approval to start promoting the service. If you look on their website there isn’t even a link to an affiliate program, it’s like you have to hunt for it. That’s not good marketing at all. Our company is web based and affiiate driven/word of mouth much like the PayPal, or E bay model. It’s simple, easy, annd more affordable than LifeLock. We will constantly improve upon our service so that we offer the very best in identity theft prevention. I have also left out a few gadgets to our service that will also set us apart from the competiton as well. Those are confidential until we officially launch. We appreciate folks like yourself who make an effort to inform the public because an identity theft prevention service must be as transparent to public scrutiny as possible if they are to retain their intergrity and longevity. LockDownMyID.com plans of getting a big percentage of LifeLock’s market share.
We believe our service is much better.
Sincerely,
Anthony Tomei/Vice President
e mail: anthony@lockdownmyid.com
http://www.lockdownmyid.com
May 9th, 2008 at 11:57 am
I’ll take your word for it since I haven’t studied it myself. And as long as you are honest about what you offer and what you don’t, I can say good luck on your service.
May 10th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
WOW. Enough is enough Gents !
We have Anthony Tomei the Vice President
of Lockdownmyid.com proclaming how great his service is. Nice touch Anthony to be on blogs – shows you’re aching for advertising.,
AND when you go to his website http://www.lockdownmyid.com – oh gosh – THERE IS NOTHING THERE. COOL graphics saying he’s coming soon. Nice.
This blog is pathetic. I’m signing up to Lifelock if this is what their competition fights with.
Jeremy, shame on you. You started off with a somewhat meaningful point and then …. gosh – you SUCK-CUMMED (succumed) to Anthony. If your company was real, you wouldn’t be …. well um, sellng yourself.
\
May 13th, 2008 at 4:12 am
You sound like a plant from Lifelock. If you read my article, you wouldn’t consider Lifelock no matter what any of their competition is doing.
And, “shame on me”? What are you talking about? I told Anthony I respected the fact that he responded to criticism and that if he truly believed he was helping people, then he’s better off than Lifelock at least. I wasn’t endorsing his service, in fact, I seem to remember saying “Deal with them if you want, but I doubt they’ll be worth the money either”, but you probably didn’t read that either.
May 13th, 2008 at 10:42 am
WOW! Keep Blowing Yourselves… Sounds Like He’s Blowing A lot of hot air for lifelock. LOL!
June 5th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
This is an awesome piece Jeremy! – I will promptly forward a link to this site to everyone I know.
Keep up the excellent work!
I am sad to see these wannabe companies try to push you around.
Thanks again!
Kam.
July 16th, 2008 at 12:03 am
Become a Bum, no-one wants your Identity then..
August 6th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Jeremy,
Good info. I found a company that sells prewritten letters for the data vendor optouts, credit freezes and links people to the companies you have talked about. I used them because I liked that for a small fee you get the prewritten letters. check them out http://www.optoutdetectives.com
Thanks man Richard
August 19th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I had been a Lifelock member for 6 months and never recieved a credit report. I still had tons of pre-approved credit cards coming in the mail. I found out that my wifes’ account had never been activated although they charged us for it! Lifelock was quick to take my money and the aftersale service was very poor to nonexistant.
After reading the other articles on this post I immediately terminated my account with Lifelock.
On the flip side I have not had any luck trying to place a credit freeze on my account. I called the big 3 and got recordings that wer not helpful. Can anyone point me in the direction of freezing my credit?
August 19th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Trell, Congrats on stopping that worthless service before you’d been taken too long. Calling credit reporting companies is a waste of time no matter what you want from them. I’ve been told that they change their phone number every month to avoid people being able to contact them too easily. I don’t doubt that for a second.
Anyway, I was able to place a freeze for myself and my wife fairly easily. Check out this link:
http://www.consumersunion.org/campaigns/learn_more/003484indiv.html
November 6th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Let me guess you sell credit freeze. The idea behind lifelock is not only to prevent credit card fraud but to notify you if it happens. Nothing is full proof, sure you can freeze everything with your credit but that is like locking yourself in the house to prevent sunburn. Sounds perfect for older people who do not need new car, home, school loans. Locking credit is fine if you don’t mind the work to unlock it if you need to use it. Lifelock may not be fool proof but at least they notify you of the fraud and help you do something about it. The people that get into real trouble are those who have no idea it it happening. If you don’t like it fine but unless they have personnaly failed you stop bashing them to promote your agenda. Go ahead and take on Pepsi verses Coke or something, at lease then you will have an opinion based on using the product.
November 6th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
“Let me guess you sell credit freeze.”
You’re a bad guesser. Credit freezes are done on a “fee” basis that you pay directly to the credit reporting companies and you can’t sell them (as far as I know). Even if you could, credit freezes are completely free for id theft victims and in some other cases too (depends on state law).
“sure you can freeze everything with your credit but that is like locking yourself in the house to prevent sunburn”
You’re also not that good with analogies. Credit freezes are like having a locking front door so you can decide who can come in your house and who can’t. Having Lifelock is like leaving your front door wide open, but having some guy stand there and tell people not to go in. When he goes in anyway and robs you of everything you own, Lifelock will pay you for what he took IF you can prove that they didn’t tell the guy not to go in.
However, you are right that I do bash Lifelock for personal reasons. They rip innocent people off who don’t know any better while failing to even mention, promote, or (GASP) include the only thing that does work. Their either incompetent or crooks and I do take that very personally.
March 8th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Glad I came here and read this before signing up for Lifelock. Thanks Jeremy!
March 9th, 2009 at 5:58 am
I’m glad too. Saving people from getting taken advantage of is essentially why I started this site in the first place. Thanks for letting me know that it’s working
March 21st, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Jeremy,
Thanks for the great info. Froze the credit and opted out of prescreen in about 1 hour at a cost of $30.00 total. It’s my credit and I should control who looks at it.
March 24th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
You’re welcome. If you’re in a good state, you’ll be able to unlock your credit easily via their website or a phone number within 15 minutes or so. If not, it will be harder, but a little delay will help keep you out of credit trouble.
Just remember any time you need to let someone check your credit that you ask which company they use so you can unlock just one (which saves money versus unlocking all three).
May 27th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
OK, I read your info here and am now wondering what to do.
So, I’m flat out asking; based on the following, what should I do?
I want my credit & ID secured.
I want to be called if someone tries to get credit using my ID and/or SS# so I can verify.
I want to protect the entire family in the same manner.
I want one throat to choke if there is a problem.
I do not want to do the leg work to accomplish this. (I’m willing to pay a fee, but I do not want to be gouged)
Where should I go to get this done??
Thanks!
May 29th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
There’s no one that will freeze all your credit reports for you that I know of, but it’s a simple process you can do yourself and it’s a one-time deal (nothing you have to maintain or bother with). The only time you have to do anything is when you actually want a new credit account but even that’s pretty easy. Check out http://www.jeremyduffy.com/top-issues/credit-security-freezes
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:07 am
Wow, your site just saved me $10 a month, keep up the good work. Will look at other options, with a freeze on my top ten list.
Having just moved to the USA from the UK, i am amazed how such a great country has such shitty consumer protection laws raging from the stores to false advertising, maybe Michael Moore should do his next movie on this.
Identity theft is rife in the UK and Europe with the underworld (Russian mafia etc) actually planting people (or worse,recruiting them by threats) in banks and superstores so they can get your details, i would guess the states is Worse as you leave your mail out on the road and Chip and PIN is nonexistent.
I myself had by card cloned (along with 600 other people) as i paid for gas at ESSO (Peterborough,Uk) , turned out that Esso’s high tech security had been hacked by a maintenance crewed in the pocket of the polish mafia.
Anyway enough of my ramblings, i applaud your use of the freedom of speech and i love the States.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Thanks Pete. It’s extremely difficult to keep your information under control, but keeping people from using it is far easier. Get a freeze and spread the word.