Resources on Identity Theft Protection, Credit Monitoring and Understanding Your Credit Rating

Search this Site

Identity Theft Protection Services - A Comparison

	About Identity Guard© Enroll Now	About Lifelock Enroll Now, Save 10%	About TrustedID Save $45 now
Price	$4.99 - $16.99/month per person	$10/month per person, $2.50/month per child below 18 - 10% off coupon if enrolling through this website	$12.95/month - Save an instant $45 by enrolling for a year ($109.95/year)
Financial Monitoring
Daily Credit Bureau Monitoring	Yes, all three	No, places fraud alerts on your credit profile instead	No, places locks and credit freezes on your profile instead
Credit Report	Sent to you every 3 months	Sent to you every year	Sent to you every year
Credit Alerts and Freezes	Optional fraud alerts set at no extra cost	Fraud alerts set and automatically renewed	Yes, sets fraud alerts, and you can optionally lock down and freeze your credit, for an additional charge
Alert Method	Email or Mail	Mobile and Home Phone	Phone
Credit Score Details	Yes	No	No
Credit Score Analysis	Yes, with tools to help improve your score	No	No
Internet surveillance	Yes, Internet chat rooms and newsgroups are scanned to see if your information is being discussed or traded	No	Yes, Internet chat rooms, newsgroups and other sources are scanned to see if your credit card number is being discussed or traded
Identity Theft Prevention
Monitoring of your public records	Yes, you will be alerted to changes in your insurance policies, government records, etc	No	No
Remove you from junk mail lists	No	Yes, your junk mail and pre-approved credit card offers will be reduced	Yes, removal from pre-approved credit card offers
Credit Repair services	If a thief steals your identity, customer service is available to guide you through the hassles of repairing your good name	If a thief steals your identity, customer service is available 24/7, seven days a week. They will repair your credit for you, hiring lawyers, accountants and other professional resources if neccessary	If a thief steals your identity, customer service is available to guide you through the hassles of repairing your good name
Identity Theft Insurance	Up to $20,000 for certain expenses, with a $250 deductible. Not available to residents in New York state	No - instead, Lifelock has a $1 million Total Service Guarantee - they will do everything they can to restore your good name, up to $1 million dollars.	$1 million identity theft insurance, through AIG and Lloyd's of London (with deductible). Not available to residents in New York state.
Conclusion
	Identity Guard© specializes in credit monitoring, with the additional service of automatically placing alerts on your credit reports and renewing these alerts. Additional tools include analysis of your credit score, tips to increase your score, and ways your score will be affected by creating your own hypothetical scenarios. You will be contacted if anybody requests your report or if it changes due to the opening of a new account, creation of a loan, etc. If you are a victim of identity theft, they will help and guide you along the process of repairing your good name.	Lifelock specializes in preventing identity theft before it happens. They do this by placing alerts on your credit report. This means thieves can not open an account or take out a loan in your name without your express consent from a phone call. In addition, Lifelock will remove you from junk mail lists, marketing databases and pre-approved credit card offers. If a thief does manage to steal your identity and damage your credit and reputation, Lifelock will do all the footwork to fix your good name, up to one million dollars.	TrustedID takes a proactive approach, locking down your credit reports to prevent identity theft from being committed in the first place. Going further, you can lock your credit reports, disallowing anybody from accessing them for any reason - you need a special PIN to open them. They send you your credit reports once per year, and also have a service that scans the Internet to see if your credit card numbers are being discussed or traded. They remove your address from pre-approved credit card lists. If your data is breached, you are backed with a $1 million insurance policy.
In a nutshell:	Advanced credit monitoring with credit report tools	Prevents identity theft before it happens by placing alerts on your credit reports	Prevents identity theft before it happens by placing alerts or freezes on your credit reports
	Enroll Now	Enroll Now (save 10%)	Enroll Now (Save $45)

Guide to Terms

• Daily Credit Bureau Monitoring - The three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, are checked every business day for new inquires and changes in each of your credit reports with them.

• Credit Report - Your credit report is the sum of your financial activites, dating back 7 to 11 years. This includes all account openings and closings, credit cards, loans, payment terms, interest rates, credit limits, mortgages, cell phone plans, etc. They do not list your savings or chequing accounts.

  Personal details such as your name, current and past addresses, Social Security number, employer (current and previous) and date of birth. They do not list your gender, race, religion, or medical history.

  Certain public information from government sources, such as bankruptcies, liens and child support payments, are recorded and remain on your report for 7 years.

  Finally, your credit report also lists who made enquires, such as financial institutions, potential employers, landlords, or insurers. This information stays on your report for two years.

  Because each credit bureau compiles your records slightly differently, your report will have variations and discrepancies between them. This is why it is good to know all three.

• Credit Alerts and Freezes - The request to place alerts (or credit locks) on your credit report. Nobody can enquire or make changes to your report without your permission. This is something you can do yourself, for free, however, the alert only remains for 90 days. You will then have to phone or write to each credit bureau to lock your report again.

  Going further, a credit freeze will completely lock down your credit reports, as if placing them in a vault. They can only be accessed using your PIN number. This means that you yourself can not apply for credit without unlocking them. The credit bureaus charge a fee for this, so your credit monitoring or identity theft prevention service will likely have to charge you to freeze and unfreeze your reports.

• Alert Method - How you are notified in case your report has had activity on it, due to an enquiry or financial application.

• Credit Score Details - Your credit score is a statistical calculation based on your financial information in your credit report. There are various types of scores, the most widely known being the FICO© score.

  The simpliest way to understand your score is: the more debt, loans and defaulted payments on your report, compared to other people in your financial range, the lower your score. The lower your score, the more risk people see in you, and thus it will be more difficult to apply for new credit, and it will be at a higher interest rate.

• Credit Score Analysis - Tools to analyze how certain actions will affect your credit. This is a great way to learn how your financal practices affect your credit score.

• Internet surveillance - Special technology scans the Internet's darker areas to see if thieves and hackers are selling, swaping or even mentioning your personal details, such as your name, address, credit card numbes or Social Security number.

• Monitoring of your public records - Your public profile, as provided by government agencies, is routinely reviewed for any changes, such as your address, personal property, licenses, court records and bankrupcy filings. Any changes without your knowledge is an early indicator of identity fraud in your name.

• Remove you from junk mail lists - There are a variety of consumer and marketing organizations who will remove your name from direct marketing and pre-approved credit card lists. However, there are a great many variety of them, some charge a service fee, and all "opt out" requests will expire over time, making this cumbersome and time-consuming to do yourself.

• Credit Repair services - If a thief commits fraud with your identity, these will all be recorded on your report. If not managed right away, you may even be arrested for fraud yourself.

  To repair your credit and clear your name, you will have to file reports with the police, credit disputes with banks and credit card companies, and contact the credit bureaus with an identity theft report.

  If you are with a credit monitoring or identity theft prevention service, you usually have resources and people to help you clear your good name. Services range from helping you file reports, to the company doing everything for you, saving you many hours of paperwork and phone calls.

• Identity Theft Insurance - If your finances are stolen by a thief who has posed as you, the government will cover your loses. Certain expenses such as court appearances, postage and phone bills, time off work, the hiring of an accountant, etc. will be either partially or completely covered by the company's insurance coverage. Note that Lifelock does not offer insurance, but backs their service with a $1 million guarantee instead.

• Home
• What is ID Theft?
• Identity Theft Prevention
• Credit Monitoring
• What is a Credit Report?
• Compare Services
• Free Credit Reports

• Lifelock
• Identity Guard
• Trusted ID

• Learn the Scams
• Tips to Stay Safe
• Recovering from ID Theft