LifeLock Promo Code – 9

Children's identities are stolen more often than you might think. It's a popular item for an identity thief because it tends to go unnoticed for a long period of time. You rarely think to check your child's credit report.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reports that 5% of all reported identity theft involves a minor child. Just think about where you've given your children's social security number and dates of birth. How about these as a starter:

• At their school
• Doctor's offices
• Your income tax returns
• Online profiles at Social Networking sites

Thieves can open credit card accounts, bank accounts, cell phones, utilities and even apply for a job using your child's info. Imagine getting a nasty-gram from the IRS addressed to your child saying they owe back taxes on unreported income!

Here's What LifeLock Does to Protect Your Children

• LifeLock Identity Alert™ system provides early notification by email, postal mail, and/or phone whenever they detect your child’s personal information being used to apply for credit or services.
• Request your child's free annual credit report with the added security feature of having a partially masked social security number.
• Send you a yearly form to request a copy of your child's Earnings Report from the Social Security Administration. You have to send the actual form yourself because there will be info on it only you can access.
• WalletLock protection for your child in case their wallet or purse is stolen or lost.

To get protection for your child's identity, add them on as a dependent to your personal membership for only $2.25 a month or $22.50 yearly when you use the promo code – 9.

Trying to deal with child identity theft after it happens is frustrating and difficult. Don't let your child start off life with a ruined name. Protect them today.

Blog child identity theft, LifeLock for kids

In their continuing effort to provide the best identity protection, LifeLock has hired a former White House lawyer as their general counsel to it's executive leadership team. Clarissa Cerda served as assistant counsel to President Clinton.

I'm glad to see that LifeLock continues to take our identity protection seriously by keeping their company well-stocked with such knowledgable people. Just knowing that so many people who are way smarter than me are looking after my personal identity keeps me happy. Keep up the good work, LifeLock!

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Have you gotten a letter telling you that your personal information has been stolen in a security breach? If you have, you're not alone. Identity thieves are at it again and have managed to hack into computers at the FAA – Federal Aviation Administration. They got 45,000+ employee information including social security numbers.

That's serious.

I hate to think that such a high profile government site could be hacked, but that just shows you how sophisticated identity theft has become. This feels like a sub-plot from the TV show '24'.

Some of the employees have said they immediately signed up with LifeLock.

I imagine all the employees will get some kind of free credit monitoring because that's the usual type of 'protection' given to most victims of a data/security breach. The problem with that is you'll only get an alert after someone uses your information. Then, you're on your own to fix it.

LifeLock's services are pro-active and help to prevent someone from using your information. If a thief did manage to steal your identity, LifeLock will fix the problem for you. For me, that's the biggest appeal of their coverage. I have enough going on in my life to keep track of without having to worry about fixing identity theft.

At the very least, all FAA employees should immediately put a fraud alert on their credit files. It's free and easy. Just contact one of the credit bureaus and they will contact the other two about it. A security freeze is more secure than a fraud alert but it's not free and can be difficult to use if you'll be wanting to open any new lines of credit or even change cell phone carriers.

The difference between a fraud alert and a security freeze.

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I decided to get an iPhone last month. I wasn't with at&t so I had to switch phone carriers. This gave me my first opportunity to see how my fraud alert was going to work.

The sales guy asked me for my social security number in a rather hush-hush voice and said I could write it down for him. I told him he could write it on the sidewalk out front because I was protected from identity theft by LifeLock. He immediately recognized the name and smiled but still kept my SSN to himself. Which was probably a good idea.

Having a fraud alert makes a request that any new creditor call me at the phone number I provided to be sure it's really me applying. Sure enough, within a couple of minutes of the at&t sales guy entering my info, my old cell phone rang.

A very nice lady started asking me a ton of questions. Things like: what was my last address, what is my mortgage payment and what is the most recent credit card that I applied for.

Me, being a bit of a scatter-brain, had some trouble. First I gave her my old street address, but she wanted my old PO Box. I kinda remembered that although I couldn't remember the zip code that went with it. She wasn't giving out any hints either.

So then, she asked me for the amount of my mortgage payment. I told her that was a trick question because I knew what my mortgage payment was but it also escrowed in my property taxes and homeowner's insurance. Those change every year and I never really memorize them because I just pay automatically online. So rather sheepishly, I gave her a number that I thought was close – like within $30…. ish.

Finally, she asked for my most recent credit card. Now I haven't applied for a new credit card in eight years. In the meantime, all the original banks have been bought out by others banks, so half the time, I don't know who I'm with. To make it even worse, it's a card that I never use. So after mumbling around for a bit, I finally came up with the right answer. I was beginning to think I was brilliant,  but she took me down another notch by asking me what the credit limit on it was. Dang. I guessed a nice round figure.

Apparently I passed the test because I walked out with my new iPhone.

Just like LifeLock says on their website, the fraud alert works and is only a minor inconvenience to you but a major roadblock for an identity thief.

EDIT:

Instead of placing fraud alerts, LifeLock has a new feature called LifeLock Identity Alert^™ System. It provides early notification by email, regular mail, and/or phone whenever they detect your personal information being used to apply for many forms or credit or services.

You can still place your own fraud alerts for free and renew them every 90 days at any of the credit bureau's website. You only have to do it at one site and they will pass on the notification to the others.

http://equifax.com

http://experian.com

http://transunion.com

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You have to wonder how any company that says it will keep your identity safe goes about securing the personal information they collect about their members.  After all the huge data breeches that have happened this year, I sometimes think monkeys are running the show. Government agencies, universities, school systems, large corporations, banks, insurance companies, hospitals, even law firms have all lost sensitive data. PrivacyRights.org is a good place to find the latest 'happening'.

LifeLock knows they are under the microscope. They take on the burden of running a tight ship with strict security measures. LifeLock is ISO 27001 certified for data and operational security. That certification is the highest you can get and follows industry best practices.

Another precaution they take is to secure all data onsite. No computers anywhere outside of secure data centers have the member's critical information on them. That's important to me because it means no stolen laptops, no stolen backup tapes, nothing is misplaced.

Richard Rzasa is now LifeLock's CIO. He had a 24 year career in the securities industry as the CIO of TD Waterhouse – a brokerage firm.  With that background, I'm guessing he knows a little something about keeping information safe.

LifeLock has my personal information but I don't worry about them losing it. They are my 'go to' guys for keeping my identity safe.

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Federal employees who have an account with Avue Technologies Corp®. will get LifeLock's identity theft protection free of charge starting July 2008. Avue Technologies Corp. provides human resources software to federal agencies. They are the premier provider of human capital technology solutions to the Federal Government and are a certified HR Line of Business Shared Service Center. LifeLock® is the nation's leading provider of identity theft protection services.

Avue Technologies and LifeLock have come together to create a joint effort to protect Federal Government agencies from liability for identity theft. Security breaches have become all too common and single incident or data breach could cost the Government hundreds of millions of dollars for credit reporting and fraud mitigation.

Full-time employees of Federal agencies who are subscribers to Avue can “opt-in” through their normal Avue Navigator® desktop portal to receive LifeLock at no charge. Full story on Avue's website.

LifeLock’s $1 Million Total Service Guarantee says:

"If our system ever fails and your identity is stolen while you are our client, we will do everything we can to fix the problem. No matter what it takes or how long it takes, we will spend up to $1 million to get the problem resolved, reimburse you for any financial losses you incur, and give you back your good name. The only requirement is that you be a paying LifeLock client when the theft occurs and that your report to us be lawful and genuine."

 The Federal Government has realized the dangers of security breaches that seem to be out of control.  Federal Agencies and contractors have found out that failed cybersecurity may lead to criminal investigations and potential prosecution.

Teaming up with LifeLock will go a long way towards preventing and/or minimizing the damage that happens with identity theft.

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With identity theft on the rise, a huge concern to me and probably to you is how to prevent identity theft. LifeLock is the leading ID theft protection company. But does LifeLock really work?

Let's break down each portion of what a LifeLock membership does and analyze it.

LifeLock does these things anyone can do for free themselves:

• Place fraud alerts – renew them every 90 days
• Opt-out of pre-approved credit offers (I did this years ago.)
• Get a free credit report every year from http://annualcreditreport.com (I always get them myself.)

A fraud alert on your credit files is designed to alert you to anyone attempting to open a new line of credit in your name. Is it foolproof? Not as total identity theft coverage because it doesn't require a new creditor to call you first, it just requests it. Plus, it is only intended to stop new lines of credit. Fraud alerts can't keep someone from saying they're you if they've been arrested.

LifeLock's CEO, Todd Davis, publishes his social security and has had multiple attempts of people trying to get credit in his name. The only time a thief was successful was with a payday loan company in Texas where the company didn't follow the protocol requested by the fraud alert. The identity thief made off with $500 but no blemishes were put on Mr. Davis' credit report and he wasn't responsible to repay the $500.

What else does LifeLock do to protect your identity?

Because your personal information is 'out there' in so many places, there's no way you can gather it back up. In addition, since January 2005 to May 2008 there have been over 225,000,000 cases of security breaches as reported by PrivacyRights.org.

Because so many bits and pieces of your identity can be bought and traded on the black market by orginized crime, LifeLock now has a technology called eRecon^tm that patrols over 10,000 known criminal websites for the illegal selling and trading of your personal information. This is something that would be very difficult if not impossible for someone to do for themselves.

LifeLock also has a feature called TrueAddress^tm that monitors the databases for address changes. Thieves commonly submit change of address forms so they can intercept your mail. As a LifeLock subscriber, you'll be notified if your address they have on file is changed.

For me, the biggest benefit of using LifeLock's services is knowing they'll help me if my identity ever gets stolen. I don't believe there's anything I can do (or any company can do) that will 100% guarantee that I'll never become a victim. Identity thieves are just too good at what they do.

Knowing LifeLock will hire attorneys, investigators, case managers, whatever it takes to clear a theft is biggie for me. The moment I finished enrolling with LifeLock, I experienced such a feeling of relief – it's hard to even explain. And it was totally unexpected.

LifeLock currently has over one million subscribers. Of these, only 105 people have had to use LifeLock's $1million total service guarantee. That's about one thousanth of one percent -  much better odds than non-subscribers. The CEO has had plenty of attempts to steal his identity. Not a single one is recorded on his credit report nor has he suffered any harm from them.

So in my opinion, yes, I do believe LifeLock works and is a small price to pay for the peace of mind I now have.

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Cost of LifeLock

LifeLock Identity Theft Protection costs $10 a month or $110 if you prefer to use the annual pay plan.

However, Life Lock offers a discounted price of $9 a month or $99 annually if you use a promotion code. The best promo code also has a special offer that gives you 30 days for free so that you can try out their services with no obligation.

To get the special offer with all the discounts and savings, use the promotional code '9'.

What's included in my LifeLock membership?

There are three things LifeLock will do for you that you can do for yourself for free:

1. 1. Place a fraud alert on your credit file – renew it every 90 days
2. 2. Opt you out of pre-approved credit offers - https://www.optoutprescreen.com
3. 3. Order your free annual credit reports

It's the things that LifeLock offers that you can't do for yourself that makes it such a good value:

• · $1 Million Total Service Guarantee
• · WalletLock – gives you help to replace the contents of your wallet if it's lost or stolen
• · 24/7 Helpline

What Can I do to protect myself from Identity Theft if I don't use LifeLock?

If you can't fit $9 a month into  your budget, please do the first 3 steps listed above to give yourself some protection from identity theft. When you get your credit reports, check them carefully for any accounts that you didn't open. Also look at them to be sure there are no mistakes – check all three because sometimes a mistake shows up on only one.

Get more tips for Identity Theft Protection.

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A favorite way identity thieves steal is through address changes. The US Postal Service reports that  45 million change-of-address forms are filed annually. Most of these changes are legit. But many times they aren't.

These change of address forms can be used by identity thieves to obtain personal information for the purpose of identity theft. That’s why, in addition to the daily online scouring of the internet through eRecon^TM, LifeLock has also introduced TrueAddress™.

LifeLock’s new TrueAddress^TM service searches to see if members have had a change of address form filed and alert them if there are changes. This is the type of thing that we as individuals really can't do for ourselves. It's just one more way for LifeLock to provide the best value in identity theft protection!

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LifeLock is committed to providing you the best identity theft protection you can find. They have now added eRecon^TM to their arsenal of features.

eRecon^TM patrols the internet in search of the unauthorized use of:

• social security numbers
• credit card numbers
• driver’s license numbers
• email addresses

This protects LifeLock members from having their information illegally traded or sold online in the internet's back alleys and blackmarkets. Identity thieves have created online marketplaces with millions of records where personal information is regularly bought and sold.

This new protection is included in the regular membership cost and covers everyone who has enrolled in the past as well as new members.

The recent incidents involving T.J. Maxx and Hannaford Brothers Supermarkets [affecting 4.2 milllion people] have dramatically illustrated the risks and realities of identity theft with millions of individuals suffering the loss of personal data.

With LifeLock protection, we can all sleep soundly!

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