Comments on: Disenchanted Customers Suing LifeLock Spokesman Todd Davis

By: mrsmicah

mrsmicah — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:46:49 +0000

@Mike, excellent point thanks for mentioning that. I used that for myself, but I should get Micah to do it as well, since he’s been getting a lot of offers lately.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:52:14 +0000

The other Lifelock feature that you can do for yourself is opting out of pre-screened credit card and insurance offers.

http://www.optoutprescreen.com is the site the FTC recommends for that.

By: Dad

Dad — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:48:47 +0000

I have found these extravagant claims in ads suspicious. Like David of MyTwoDollars above, I pay about $10 a month for a monitoring service from my bank. It also allows me to look at all three of my credit reports at any time for no extra charge. If I didn’t have the discretionary spending money for this in my budget, I would take the other advise given here about managing it yourself. It sounds about as good and is cheaper while more work. We know that being frugal is work. I wish we knew how to monitor other uses of our SSN. There are still too many copies on mine on my medical records since the Health Insurance companies used to use it as the ID number and the doctors’ offices have yet to remove it from their records. In once case, I refused to fill out that required field on one form and later in the appointment found that they had filled it in from their records. A hangover from the days before so much fraud!

By: Ben @ Trees Full of Money

Ben @ Trees Full of Money — Sat, 24 May 2008 09:03:22 +0000

Everything that lifelock does can be done by the consumer for free including putting fraud security alerts on each credit bureau, as well at opting out of pre-screened credit and insurance offers.

Also, consider that LifeLock co-founder Robert Maynard, Jr. resigned from his position after an articles published by the Phoenix Times disclosed his past bankruptcies as well as an incident that he may have stolen his own fathers identity to obtain an American Express Card.

According to Todd Davis, Maynard still maintains a 10% stake with the company and “consults” for the business from time to time.

I’m not putting my identity protection anywhere near these guys!!

By: Susan

Susan — Sat, 24 May 2008 00:58:20 +0000

Guess we won’t be seeing anymore of those commercials?

I was always suspicious of them. No, you can’t guarantee complete protection from identify theft… especially if you go around announcing your SS# to all the world!

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 23 May 2008 21:42:49 +0000

Great post. I was a believer in the concept (who could argue against a guy who publicly announced his SSN with a megaphone in some big city?), but when I heard about the litigation, I took down all my ads and put a disclaimer on the 2 or 3 posts where I had mentioned the company.

I did comment, however, when posting about the virtues of the company that a person could do for free all of the things LifeLock did for a fee. It seemed to be a matter of convenience.

By: David

David — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:18:49 +0000

I pay for it – at $9 a month it costs $108 a year. Just to lock and unlock your reports in one year cost $60, so it’s not much more, really. Plus, I don’t have to think about it at all.

By: Vered

Vered — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:02:03 +0000

“Plus, you can make the same fraud alerts that LifeLock does for free if you really think your identity has been compromised. Each of the credit bureaus has instructions on its site for how to contact them about that.”

Absolutely true. My husband did that when a fraudulent account was opened in his name a few years ago.

By: L@spillingbuckets

L@spillingbuckets — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:55:09 +0000

I’ve always been worried about LifeLock… it seemed really expensive for a product like that and really scam like. This doesn’t surprise me at all.

I’ve been using Zander insurance simply because they assign someone to you if you experience theft and refund costs associated with it (lawyers etc). I know someone who had their ID Stolen (my uncle) and he said Zander was one of the best things he had at the time.

By: Funny about Money

Funny about Money — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:39:16 +0000

right on!

Too bad you can’t monetize common sense, Mrs. M–you’d be rich by now!