Identity theft protection services

[Dwhit]

At the request of my better half, I signed up with life lock. They did call us very promptly when my wife opened a new charge account at the Gap (or one of those type stores). So I would say so far so good.

I was pleasantly surprised by my bank the other night. We live in Oklahoma, and have our checking, as well as our daughters checking at this bank. The bank called and asked if our daughter (who lives in Fla.) had used her debit card in Virginia for gas. We checked with her quickly, then told them no, and they froze the card. There was one other charge near the same location for thirty dollars that the bank said would get credited back to her account. I thought it was great service for our local bank.

 

[tsmisc]

I do check my credit reports, but they are free only once a year, so checking them often can get expensive. That's why I'm interested in a service that might monitor any activity for me.

Like other memebers have mentioned, this will not prevent identity theft since you'll only know when the theft has already occured. An alternative way to check your reports is instead of checking all your reports once a year, you can check one at a time every 4 months.

 

[donheff]

It is beyond me why credit reporting agencies are not required to permit people to register for email alerts when credit request are made - both simple requests for ratings and/or requests to open new credit lines.

 

[Dimsumkid]

I don't have an account with them. Never purchased anything from Target.com ever. I'll just have to wait until it shows up. That's why I'm thinking this is related to the hacking since my last purchase was in store Dec 16.

EDIT: Maybe I won a contest from them, maybe a gift card? I did enter a Target contest over the holidays. That's the only other thing I can think of..something positive would be nice.

My package finally arrived today. It had nothing to do w/the hack problem. I won a pair of Denizen (Levi brand) jeans from the Denizen facebook page. Instead of sending them from their own shop, they ordered them from Target.com and had them process it.

 

[Hermit]

I have a 1 year 'free' subscription to Protect My ID which appears to be offered by Experian. It was offered by my former employer which happens to be the federal government. Evidently there was an incident where thousands of employee and former employee identification was stolen. Lucky me! It appears that there has been no problem as of yet since the incident was last year somewhere around April or May. Unfortunately very little info is ever given to the potential victims so we really don't know how it happened.

The monitoring service did notify me recently when I joined PenFed CU and they pulled my credit report. So I guess the service does work at least for credit report activity.

I too have a one year free subscription to Experian credit monitoring courtesy of my credit card company. I get notified every month when I pay off a credit card or if I make a very large purchase. Usually several days after the fact.

I too opened a PenFed account about 2 weeks ago. Nothing yet from Experian.

 

[Shanky]

Holy Paranoia Batman!


Fear Sells....

 

[H2ODude]

Is the $10 fee to freeze credit reports something new? I froze my three about a year or two ago and IIRC it didn't cost me anything. I unfroze it once to get a card with a $100 rebate on 4 tires, no cost no hassle.

 

[powerplay]

I got another 'love note' in my e-mail a couple days ago. This time from Target telling me my information may have been stolen. Over a year ago I ordered online so the data breech is way way bigger than what gets reported in the news. Also another offer of a free year of monitoring. Well I am already in the middle of my free year from my former employer.

 

[Alan]

Don't you have to give your SS number to the credit report company to see your credit report? Who are these credit report companies? Who monitors them? How do they protect our personal info? After a security problem, I was offered a 1-year free credit report monitoring. But, to get that service, I had to give my SS number to some unknown company. Just 'cause they do credit reports doesn't mean the company isn't run by some teenager in Bulgaria.

The credit report companies already have your SS#, and entering your SS# along with answering 2 or 3 questions is validating your identity. I recently signed up with the free 1 year ID protection offered by Target and the link took me to the Experion site where I had to enter SS#, give the maiden name of my mother and answer 2 multiple choice questions to do with streets I've lived on and companies I've had loans from.

I put a credit freeze through the 3 agencies a couple of years ago but was intrigued at the ID protection offer.

 

[MichaelB]

My package finally arrived today. It had nothing to do w/the hack problem. I won a pair of Denizen (Levi brand) jeans from the Denizen facebook page. Instead of sending them from their own shop, they ordered them from Target.com and had them process it.

A happy ending.