Anyone Use a Credit/Identity Protection Service - LifeLock?

[MarkF48]

It seems once a month lately a business gets hacked in one way or another that puts a persons personal information and finances at risk. I've thought about getting something like LifeLock, but just not sure it's worth it.
Anyone have any experience with LifeLock or similar that it has protected you in some way?

 

[kcflhrc]

After the Home Depot security breach they are offering a one year free subscription to All Clear ID. I signed up since I pretty much live at Home Depot and use my debit card there all the time. If I had to pay for it, I probably wouldn't.

 

[rekees4300]

Anyone have any experience with LifeLock or similar that it has protected you in some way?

I had LifeLock a few years ago. Canceled after finding out its founder is a convicted felon.

Is LifeLock Identity Theft Protection Really a Rip-Off? | Fraud Files Forensic Accounting Blog

 

[RollingsFarms]

You really don't need those services, they are a waste of money. My credit union allows you to check your credit once a month for free and I monitor my bank accounts DAILY. There's not a day that goes by that I'm not on my phone or computer and take a look at my bank records to see what's going on.

 

[300UGUY]

I think it is a waste of money. There are cheaper ways to check your credit.

 

[Otto Syracuse]

Checking your statements and accounts often is good advice! I looked at mine yesterday and have $18,000 in charges to a boutique dress shop in NYC. One call to the credit card company and the account is locked, charges reversed and no liability to me.
I was so ticked off I called the dress shop to see what their story was. Apparently, 100 dresses were being shipped to West Africa. The woman on the phone frantically kept saying, "I've got to call UPS right away!"

 

[tomd999]

Hiya,

If you have AAA you may have a similar service included in your membership at no additional cost to you, call your local office and ask.

Tom

Afterthought: One way to avoid a lot of the issues with erroneous charges is to never use your debit card outside of your issuing banks ATM and only use a credit card for retail or online purchases. A lot of point of sale systems store the number and PIN of the debit cards in their tables whereas, a credit purchase only stores the card number and purchase authorization number. Since the expiration date and security code aren't part of the record, it's harder, but not impossible for criminals to use the credit card information. Since I have stuck to this method, I haven't had to have a debit or credit card replaced in years, before that, it was almost every 6 months one of them was getting replaced.

 

[Jim Nelson]

About a week ago we got a call from Visa fraud asking about a suspicious purchase which we hadn't made so they shut the card down and our credit union is in the process of sending new.This no good transaction was at Knott's Berry Farm and today we got a call from a detective in Buena Park, which is in that area, and she said they have the guy and gave me the info to give to our credit union so they can try to get their money back.
This is the second time this has happened to us and both times the credit card fraud dept. was on it before we had a clue anything was wrong.With this kind of service I wouldn't pay for someone else to maybe watch out for me.

 

[Pixguy]

USAA just reissued my MC card because I used it at Home Depot, just to be safe.

 

[tomd999]

Hi Again,

One thing to look for often is very small purchase amounts in places you know you didn't do. Any amount under 10 cents should trigger your card issuer to lock the account until they speak with you, sometimes they get through. These are "tests" to see if the account number is valid and active. Once you see these, the value of your cards number is much higher on the black market and a large purchase often follows close behind as they want to either use it themselves or get a higher price for the # and then it is used by the purchaser.

Tom