Lifelock is a Waste of Money

When I was introducing iDefend to 33 PC User Groups in Arizona in March, I took some heat for comparing iDefend with Lifelock.  At one meeting, a few Lifelock subscribers openly criticized me for offering up a few critical facts about Lifelock and the veracity of its founders, so I stopped comparing iDefend to Lifelock.  I should have known better than to disparage the competition anyway.

 Still, if you're a Lifelock subscriber, you'll want to read this Associated Press news article about LifeLock and its founders ill-advised use of his SSN for advertising purposes.

A few excerpts:

"Todd Davis has dared criminals for two years to try stealing his identity: Ads for his fraud-prevention company, LifeLock, even offer his Social Security number next to his smiling mug. Now, Lifelock customers in Maryland, New Jersey and West Virginia are suing Davis, claiming his service didn't work as promised and he knew it wouldn't, because the service had failed even him."

" Attorney David Paris said he found records of other people applying for or receiving driver's licenses at least 20 times using Davis' Social Security number, though some of the applications may have been rejected because data in them didn't match what the Social Security Administration had on file."

"Davis acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that his stunt has led to at least 87 instances in which people have tried to steal his identity, and one succeeded: a guy in Texas who duped an online payday loan operation last year into giving him $500 using Davis' Social Security number."

"LifeLock is also being sued in Arizona over its $1 million service guarantee, which the plaintiffs claim is misleading because it only covers a defect in LifeLock's service, and in California by the Experian credit bureau. Experian accuses LifeLock of deceiving consumers about the breadth of its protection and abusing the system for attaching fraud alerts to credit reports."

"Security experts say complaints about the company reinforce the time-honored wisdom of keeping your Social Security number secret."

"There's been a lot of marketing, a lot of hype about LifeLock," said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy with the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization. "The question is, 'How much protection does it really buy you?'"

"There is no company that can guarantee they can protect you (completely) against identity theft," Stephens said. "Absolutely nobody can do that."

This just emphasizes the importance of having 1) whole identity protection, and not just credit protection, and 2) a GREAT RECOVERY service in place.   iDefend offers the best of both, which is the reason I subscribe for my entire family.